


Don't Waste Your Time on Me (You're Already the Voice Inside My Head)

by DyrneKeeper



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 07:30:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyrneKeeper/pseuds/DyrneKeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The afternoon Blaine storms out of the house, Kurt doesn’t immediately understand why he doesn’t text to say he’s made it home safely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The afternoon Blaine storms out of the house, Kurt doesn’t immediately understand why he doesn’t text to say he’s made it home safely. Sure, they fought, but they’ve had fights before, and the silent treatment has never really worked with them; they’re terrible at playing chicken and it never takes long for one or the other to give in and call. Is Blaine trying to worry him? Kurt wonders, eyeing the clock as the minutes pass with growing unease. Well, that’s just fine then. If he wants to be childish like that. Kurt turns off his phone - let Blaine try to call now.

Kurt forgets to eat and spends the rest of the evening repacking and snapping at Finn. He turns on his phone for a few minutes at a time; checks his email; keeps an eye on the door and an ear on the road. He hates himself for it, even while he's doing it. Kurt Hummel is strong. Kurt Hummel is pissed. Kurt Hummel is not to be messed with.

Three days pass.

On the morning of the fourth, Kurt decides they are broken up.

If they're breaking up anyway it's damn well going to be his decision. Kurt Hummel is single. Kurt Hummel doesn't need anyone to help him take on the world. Kurt Hummel waited long enough for Blaine Anderson to get his act together the first time, and he is not waiting again.

Kurt Hummel’s heart is not supposed to be broken.

*

Even years later, Kurt will never be able to remember his first weeks in New York with any sort of concrete clarity. There are too many firsts, too many new experiences, to be able to absorb and process them all. The city is, somehow, different when he's living there than when he had just been visiting. The streets are dirtier and the skyscrapers are taller and he feels just a little bit swallowed up by the huge streets and the buildings that fend off the sky. He feels strangely adrift, his narrative of his own life untethered.

He's busy, all the time, more than he ever has been in his life, but it's still not enough to erase the time for homesickness and loneliness. Rachel's there, of course, but for the first time he's known her their surroundings dwarf her, too. It unsettles Kurt more than he expected, to see Rachel small and, no matter how loudly she sings, quiet.

One of the moments that does stand out from the haze of disorientation and adjustment is their second weekend in town. They get rush tickets for a show, get dressed up and walk down Broadway, arm-in-arm. The lights are bright as the sun goes down and Kurt can feel a bit of the magic of New York he remembers from last June sparking under his skin.

The show is everything Kurt had imagined it would be, back then, except for the empty seat on his left as Rachel clings shining-eyed to his right hand. He remembers singing with her on a stage not far from this one, when it had been so easy to tell her to make a choice between love and a career because he hadn't had to choose himself. Not that, in the end, he'd had much of a choice at all.

Later that night Kurt slips into his room, trying not to wake Patrick, his roommate. He hangs up his jacket, slips his phone out of his pocket, sets it on his desk. He reaches for his shower caddy but stops, picks up the phone, sets it down again, grabs it one more time and is almost to the door before he turns back around and drops it onto his bed. The night had been so nice, so much fun, and with the potential of everything he’d once thought New York could be to him humming in his veins Kurt feels like maybe he can reclaim all the potential the city had once held for him. But as much as he wants to call, Kurt can't stand the thought that maybe Blaine won't pick up. What would he even say? Kurt doesn't even know how to apologize when he's not sure what really went wrong.

He drops the phone on his bed and leaves to take a shower.

*

In a fit of pique, after he had finally realized that Blaine wasn't going to call before he left Ohio, Kurt had defriended him on Facebook. It had been petty and juvenile, and it's petty and juvenile now that Kurt wishes he hadn't, wishes he could still watch Blaine even when they're apart. He didn't keep any pictures, not of him, certainly not of them, but Rachel had gently tugged the shoebox of snapshots and ticket stubs and CDs out of his hands as he'd prepared to throw the whole thing away. He doesn't know what she did with it, and he's not pathetic enough to ask, but he's not above noticing one afternoon as they study together that she's got a message from Blaine, and from there it's only a slip of willpower and some hasty rationalization before he's hacking into her account. At some point, he thinks, he'll have to have a word with Rachel about choosing a better password than “gold_star,” but right now, he has some stalking to do.

He doesn't get past Blaine's profile picture, though, before he closes the window with a vicious click. There's green lawn and a hint of water that must be the Charles and Blaine, lying on his back, smiling up at the camera and looking so god damned happy that Kurt can't stand it.

*

After that, it’s not easier to let go of the memory of Blaine, but it is somehow easier to try to move forward. Kurt settles into something like a rhythm at school, class and meals and practice and homework and Rachel and (never enough) sleep. By the middle of October he accepts the date with Ryan from Movement Class reluctantly. (Rachel referred to him as "Ryan from Movement Class" the first time she brought him up, and Kurt's never been able to think of him in any other way.) Ryan is nice, polite, and utterly boring; he also can't stop staring at Kurt throughout the entire hour they spend together at Starbucks. Kurt squirms under the (appreciative) scrutiny and makes an excuse to leave early, smiling emptily as he turns down Ryan's suggestion that they meet that weekend at a nearby bar.

Adam Smith ("Save your breath, I guarantee I've heard it before," he says with a smile when Kurt opens his mouth to make an Econ 100 joke) from Rachel's roommate's choir group is more promising, and they even make it to a third date. When Adam, more under the influence than Kurt can really find endearing, lets his hands slip too low on the dance floor, Kurt barely quashes the urge to slap him and stalks out.

Rachel begs Kurt to give Adam another chance, or to give any one of the boys on her list a first chance, but Kurt is adamant: from now on, if he wants to date he will find his own candidates. There are plenty of guys in his classes that he finds attractive, and Kurt himself is getting more positive attention than he ever has in his life. It's thrilling to finally garner appreciative second looks and long glances instead of blank-eyed stares at his outfits when he walks into a room or down the street. But - but - there's nobody that's caught his eye yet, he tells Rachel.

They both know what he really means.

*

In a few weeks it becomes a moot point anyway as midterms and projects sap their time and their energy. Kurt feels as though he lives in the library. He spends so much time hunched over textbooks and his laptop at too-small carrels that by the end of November he's even given up dressing up to go to the library. In battered jeans he only ever used to wear to work at the shop and one of Finn’s old hoodies he sits cross-legged at "his" carrel (on the third floor, between the water fountain and the window looking out over the street). The sweatshirt isn't as big as it would have been if Finn hadn't managed to defy all logic of laundry and shrink it somehow, and it's soft and it's warm and it reminds Kurt of home during the long, dark late-fall evenings.

He's there so often that he ends up learning the schedule of all the student librarians working the circulation desk. He hadn't realized that they'd learned his schedule, too, until one of them greets him with a "Hey, Kurt! Leaving already?" as he's checking out books one Friday after Thanksgiving. He's got plenty left to do, but the weekend is coming up, and all he wants to do is go back to the dorms and forget about school while he and Rachel make plans for Christmas. The librarian - Tuesdays and Thursdays seven to midnight, Saturday mornings eight to eleven; Kurt thinks his name is Taye - takes the books Kurt pushes onto the counter and begins scanning them with a grin.

"If you're going to leave before dawn like a normal person I might actually get to ask you out." Kurt stops in the middle of pulling out his student ID, tilts his head in confusion. Taye just grins. "Coffee at the union tomorrow? If you won't have to make amends to your homework." Kurt's dates with Rachel's candidates have all been arranged, nobody's actually asked him out yet, and he hears himself speak before he even thinks about his response.

"No, thanks, I have a - " He stops himself, just barely, doesn't meet Taye's eyes. He hasn't had a - hasn't had an anything, in months. What is he thinking?

What is he thinking? Kurt thinks of his plans with Rachel for the evening, thinks of Ohio and home, familiar streets and friendly faces, love and holiday happiness, hazel eyes and hope for a second chance."No, thank you," Kurt smiles, lets Taye scan his card, takes his books, and leaves.

*

The first morning back for Christmas break Kurt sleeps in, reveling in the size and softness and familiarity of his own bed, even if he forgets what side his nightstand is supposed to be on. He spends a frustrating few seconds groping for a lamp that isn't there before he remembers where he is and falls on his back with a sigh. He stares at the ceiling for long minutes while the blankets settle back around him, wondering what he's going to do with himself today. For the last weeks of the semester, Christmas break - getting home - was an end in itself, and whatever holly and hazel-colored dreams he'd had, Kurt hadn't actually thought about what being back in Lima would really mean.

He thinks about it more as he takes his time in the shower, a bathroom he blessedly doesn't have to share with a hallwayful of boys. He has a list of things he wants to do, places he wants to go, people he wants to see, but for now it's nice to just stand and soak in the hot spray, letting the water wash away the grit of the city and the isolation and the perpetual smallness he feels in New York. He'd been so vocal, so passionate about leaving Ohio and flying somewhere else all of his senior year, and before he sees anyone he needs to find that part of himself and scrub it up, polish it and put it on display so everyone will see how much he loves New York, how much he's owning his life and living out his future there. He is Kurt Hummel and he is strong and the people who used to be the New Directions will not see how tired and uncertain he has been ever since he left. He emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam and sandalwood, feeling warm and determined. It's not the comfort he thought he'd feel being back home, but for now, it will have to do.

It's dark downstairs, the lights off and the house empty. Carole and his dad are at work and there's a note on the fridge from Finn; he's out with Rachel.

He puts the kettle on to boil and makes himself toast, and while the tea is steeping checks his phone. There's not much, just a brief message from Patrick asking if he's made it back home safely that Kurt answers just as briefly. As he's digging through the fridge for the jam, though, his phone buzzes on the counter. This time it's from Mercedes, and he feels a small rush of warmth seeing her name on the screen. "How's home, baby?"

He smiles as he types back. "Finn finished my jam already, I know Carole just got a new jar. How does he do that?"

Her response comes quickly. "Come over to my place on Wednesday and we'll do some brother-proof baking. Only 4 more days!"

"It's a date" he sends back. After a brief hesitation he adds "Can't wait to see you!" Because he can't; he can't wait to be together with his girls again, and it must be safe to admit that. Even the fabulous Kurt Hummel is allowed to be excited to see one of his best friends.

"You too, baby!!!" The extra exclamation points make him smile, and Kurt pockets his phone before he gives up the futile search for jam and pulls out the butter instead.

After breakfast (lunch, technically, a glance at the clock reveals, but college is for nothing if not destroying any sense of normalcy when it comes to mealtimes) Kurt pulls open the front door and spends a moment breathing in the cold air that seeps through the thin glass of the outer door. Beyond the fog his breath is forming on the glass he can see the winter-dead front garden, bushes bare and dripping, and the street and the neighbors' driveways beyond that, bordered with shoveled snow.

He grabs a coat from the closet and checks his reflection in the mirror in the hall as he wraps a scarf around his neck. When he climbs into his old Navigator and plugs in his iPod Kurt isn't entirely sure where he's going to go, but as soon as he backs out of the driveway the road seems to carry him without any need for thought, and Kurt is glad to let it take him.

He follows the familiar route through town, through his old neighborhood and past the house he'd grown up in. From there the drive to McKinley feels easy, and he slows down only barely as he pulls past the old gray building. It looks smaller than ever in the shadows of the skyscrapers of New York. He doesn't want to stop to visit yet - there will be time enough for that after Christmas - but for now it's good to see it and know that it's still there and that he's still not, that he will never have to return out of anything but nostalgia.

He spends a moment fiddling with his iPod and it's not until he's merging onto the highway that he realizes his brain hasn't turned off his autopilot yet; it's been two years now but his car seems to remember the way to Westerville without him needing to think about it. He does think about it, though, for long minutes as the wet, salty highway rolls past, thinks about the place where so many things began for him, and not just Blaine. About learning to be safe, to be comfortable in himself, to be himself even while being part of a team. He hasn't missed Dalton much since he left, but he misses it now, the place where he got to start everything over.

It's not his place anymore, if it ever had been his, and he passes the exit he'd taken so many times before. He turns around at the next one instead, and turns up the music as he cruises back towards home. The Ohio sky is huge, bigger than he ever remembered it, just high white sky and winter fields and quiet roads, a horizon not hemmed in by steel and glass. Kurt's hands are cold on the wheel and the defroster is setting the windshield dripping, and he isn't sure if what he's feeling is freedom or emptiness.

*

Finn greets him with an enthusiastic "Hey, bro!" from the living room when Kurt pushes open the front door. Rachel has returned with him, and the two of them are cuddled up together on the couch, Finn's arm around her shoulders and Rachel burrowed into his side. Kurt shucks his coat and hangs it up quickly, smoothing the folds of his scarf out as he loops it over a hook on the back of the door. He'd had the heat on but his car had never really warmed up - something to look into later, if he has time and the inclination to get his hands dirty - and in all his layers it's now uncomfortably hot inside. He feels sweat start to prickle at his shoulder blades as he returns to the living room and takes the chair across from where Finn and Rachel are sitting.

"How was your morning?" he asks, settling himself in and crossing his ankle over his knee, eyebrow arched for effect. Their reactions do not disappoint - Finn tries to not look guilty and fails to appear anything but, and Rachel giggles and blushes prettily but her smile to Kurt is wicked. Kurt winks at her and tries not to be jealous. Last year they'd had a system, covered for each other and made deals with each other and traded off on who got the empty house when. He and Finn had been spared the crippling embarrassment of coming to understandings by virtue of being brothers-but-not-brothers-who-you-remembered-being-three, and Kurt had nearly died laughing when a mortified Blaine had wrestled the star stickers out of Rachel's hands and threatened her on pain of laryngitis from committing their schedule to any sort of paper, much less the lavender stationary with the gel pens that were being scattered about in the scuffle.

They'd been a part of a team, in school and out, and it had been good. Being a part of something special makes you special, and Kurt had been a part of so many special things. It hurts, seeing Rachel smile up and Finn and whisper something, watch him grin at her in return and lean down to kiss her. Kurt has been jealous of his ex-crush and his former rival before, though, and he's never let it stop him yet, so he grins and bears it and chats and makes plans with Rachel for brunch on Friday and accepts an invitation from Finn for a party Friday night with some of Finn's friends from Chicago who live nearby.

"Alright, I'm going to call Tina and let her know the plan," Kurt announces when Finn and Rachel's attention begins to drift away from him and gravitate towards each other. He can't blame them, and he doesn't, not really. But a part of him can't help but resent losing his brother and his best friend at the same time.

Back in his room Kurt calls Tina while he arranges photos he's brought back from New York on a display board he'd picked out and hung on his wall back in August for that very purpose. The motions are easy and familiar, and as he eyes the balance of movement in the pictures while he juggles plans with his old friend, Kurt gradually begins to feel more like himself than he has all day.

When his dad and Carole finally make it home from work he joins them in the kitchen to help make dinner, and he feels normal almost without thinking about it.

Rachel stays for dinner and she and Finn invite him to go see a movie afterward, but Kurt is tired, late as he'd slept in, and has no desire to be a third wheel. So he smiles and declines and helps with the dishes and then finds himself upstairs again. He'd never spent this much time alone in his room before, without homework to do, but he's gotten used to life lived in only one room and it feels a little strange to have so much space downstairs without many people to fill it. With Finn and Rachel gone the house is quiet, the only sounds the low murmur of his parents' voices and the tick and rush of the furnace kicking on. He hadn't realized how much he'd gotten used to the continual hum of a building full of people, the constant footsteps and slamming doors and conversations that carried down narrow corridors and through thin walls. The silence feels large and loud, and Kurt turns music on as he begins his bedtime regime. Always music, to cover the noise outside or fill the spaces inside life.

Before he turns out the light Kurt curls up on the pillows and scrolls through the names on his phone. He'd taken Blaine's number off his speed dial after the breakup, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to delete it entirely. Kurt’s ex-boyfriend, ex-best friend, his ex-everything hasn't been far from his thoughts all day, and now Kurt hovers his fingers over his name and thinks about it. Thinks about what he would say. Hi? How are you? I miss you? I think I still love you?

Kurt lets his head fall back against the wall. He doesn't even know if Blaine is back in Ohio yet. He could be in the middle of cramming for exams and it could be that the last thing he needs is any sort of distraction, much less from his too-proud bitchy ex, asking - what? Meet me for coffee? Can we be friends? Do you ever think we could be together again?

It's absurd. Kurt drops the phone to his nightstand and flicks off his lamp. New York had seemed easier than Ohio, and Ohio had seemed so much easier than New York. He climbs under the covers, suddenly exhausted, and tries to get comfortable in the too-dark and too-quiet. It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

The next day is easier, and the day after that is easier again. He forgets the size of the Ohio sky the same way he forgot the size of the New York skyline: by getting lost in the details. He helps Carole clean the house and goes shopping for Christmas dinner; he meticulously wraps and labels the things he's brought for his friends and family from the city; he fills his phone with plans with friends and carefully plans his outfits for the same. By the time Wednesday comes he's feeling well-immersed in preparations for Christmas and sings high along with the radio on the drive to Mercedes' house.

He struggles for a moment getting out of the car, trying to juggle his bag and his keys as he pulls the tub of decorating supplies out of the backseat. He just barely keeps his footing on the slippery walk, and doesn't notice that Mercedes has pulled open the front door until he hears her squeal "Kurt!" He nearly drops his things when she barges out onto the porch and tackles him into a hug.

"Ooph, Mercedes!" he laughs, tucking his chin over her shoulder the best he can for a half-hug. "Just let me - here -" he sets the tub down on the porch railing and gets his arms around her in a proper hug, squeezing tight for an extra few seconds before he pulls back to look at her. "Oh, Mercedes, you look gorgeous," he exclaims, and she does. College and California have been good to her, and she's practically glowing. "But it is way too cold out to stand out here in that shirt, come on, let's get you inside."

Mercedes grabs him to fold him into one more quick hug, and then she grabs the tub in one hand and his arm in the other and pushes the door open with her hip as she calls out ahead of them. "Mama! Look who I found!"

"Kurt, is that you, honey?" Mrs. Jones comes round the corner from the kitchen, from which delicious smells are already wafting, and then Kurt is bundled up in another tight, warm hug. "Sweetheart, you look wonderful, how are you?" she asks, pulling back and taking the tub from Mercedes and leading the way into the kitchen. "How is New York?"

"I'm good, Mrs. Jones, thank you." Kurt smiles and feels it threatening to reach his ears but he can't help it, he's too excited, it's too good to be back here with the friends he hasn't seen in far too long. "New York is wonderful, I've -"

"Mmhmm, yeah, yeah, Mama, don't encourage him, that East Coast ego of his does not need any help." Mercedes nudges past Kurt and gives him a wink over her shoulder.

"East coast - hey!" he laughs, following her into the kitchen.

"You know it's true, boy, you never could fit in Ohio. You were always way too big for this popsicle stand. I don'twant to make your head any bigger, or you'll never come back! Besides," Mercedes drops her voice and leans over the kitchen island conspiratorially. "None of your good stories are going to be parentally approved, right?"

"Mmm, we'll see." Kurt laughs but he's stung for a moment - Mercedes can't think he's really that full of himself, can she, that he'd ever forget his friends from home, in the face of whatever small success he manages to eke out of New York? He knows - hopes - that she's mostly teasing, but he can't quite shake the feeling of self-consciousness until they're interrupted in their rummage through the refrigerator for ingredients by the doorbell.

It's Rachel, and thirty seconds behind her is Tina, and then Kurt is distracted by hugs and piles of outerwear and the chatter of voices as all four of them try to catch up at once, never mind that they've all talked to each other less than a week before. Tina has just gotten into town last night and looks it, still too pale and tired from exams, but it's so good to have them all together again.

They spend hours baking, and then spend even longer decorating, and they make a thorough mess of the kitchen and themselves and each other as they talk and laugh and gossip and sing Christmas carols. Kurt hears all about Tina's struggle to keep a long distance relationship together with Mike, and the most recent details of Mercedes' apparently perpetual on-again-off-again with Sam. Rachel basks in the distinction of having got through the first semester apart without a single fight with Finn, and Kurt makes Tina and Mercedes laugh and Rachel bluster with indignation as he dissects every guy she's ever set him up with and pushes away the sting of knowing he’s the only one of them not with their high school boyfriend. It's a small form of chaos in the best way possible, and Kurt basks in it.

It's getting dark by the time they're done, the blue, velvety dark of a suburban snowy day drifting quietly into night, and Kurt tasks Rachel with washing dishes ("because you keep letting dirty mugs pile up in your room, maybe this will teach you a lesson," he declares over her protests). He and Mercedes arrange the finished cookies in boxes while Tina nods drowsily on the living room couch.

"All right, Tina, these are for your folks. These ones, Mercedes, you can take to church, and Rachel, these are the reserves for your dads in case Finn gets to yours first, which he will."

"Are there enough for the cookie exchangaganza?" Mercedes asks, eying the cooling racks.

"The what?" Kurt snaps a tupperware lid to make sure the seal is tight.

"The First Annual McKinley Cookie Exchange Extravaganza," Mercedes declares, tossing her head, and Kurt can hear the capital letters in her voice and is absolutely sure that whatever it is, it was Mr. Schuester's idea. “Sam told me about it—Mr. Schue's trying to build solidarity between all the Glee generations or something." She shrugs. "Cookies, music, singing, what's not to be excited about?"

"In that case, these are perfect," Kurt points to a rack that has been meticulously decorated by Rachel with a complete excess of gold and silver balls and pink sprinkles. "When Coach Sylvester breaks out her annual anti-Christmas vendetta they will at least be able to stand up under scrutiny."

"Hey!" Rachel protests from the sink. "Those are perfectly acceptable holiday cookies. Besides," she drains the sink and rinses off her hands. "Tina used up all the red."

"When is it?" Tina asks, coming back in to the kitchen and leaning against the counter, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Day after tomorrow - last day of school for the McKinley kids. You all going to go?"

Rachel dries her hands and bobs on her toes enthusiastically, and Kurt agrees only a little less excitedly. It will be good to go back to visit, and even better if he doesn't have to go alone. As he turns for another box, though, he catches a look he can't decipher pass between Mercedes and Rachel. He considers asking them about it but then Tina asks about a time and a place for Friday and he has to jot it down in his phone and then the thought gets lost in a whirl of cookie boxes and scarves and goodbye hugs.

Tina and Mercedes have some thing going on later that night with their respective churches, and though Kurt really has no interest in going he’s not quite ready for the evening to end, so he’s glad when Rachel suggests stopping for coffee before they call it a night.

Rachel lives closer to Mercedes so they stop by her house first to drop off her car and her cookies, and as they’re walking back out to Kurt’s Navigator Rachel tips her head back and spins slowly, staring up at the early evening stars. “That was so lovely,” she sighs. “The stars are twinkling! I think I can feel the Christmas magic, Kurt!”

“Mmm, I think that’s just the sugar high talking.” He unlocks the car and opens his door. “Come on, get in before you freeze, and you can remind me why giving you caffeine right now is a good idea.” Rachel laughs and gives one more twirl before she climbs in the passenger side. Kurt glances up at the sky as he pulls his own door shut, at the stars high in the Ohio sky over a blue and snowy landscape. He can feel it, then; the warmth in his throat, the tingling at his fingertips, even the first blast of cold air out of the vents before the heater kicks back on. It is magic.

As he pulls out of the driveway Rachel plugs her iPod in and sets it to her “Berry Merry Christmas” playlist, and starts singing along to “Frosty the Snowman” with an appalling operatic sincerity. After a verse Kurt can’t help but join in. All the soundproof practice rooms at school, and there’s still nowhere quite like a car to let loose.

The drive to the Lima Bean takes them past McKinley, and as they pass it Rachel runs her head to watch and then turns back to Kurt. “What are you going to sing when we go back?”

“Sing when we - Rachel, it's a cookie exchange. There will be a tree if Mr. Schue hasn’t managed to screw up as badly as usual and way too much tinsel and a bunch of freshman we don’t even know, probably not speaking to each other over who got what solo. What makes you think there will be time for singing?”

“Kurt!” Rachel sounds scandalized. “This is glee. Of course there will be singing. And as the Class of 2012’s greatest success stories, you and I have an obligation to show them how it’s done.”

Kurt takes a moment to think about it. He’d never chosen a Christmas solo before; it had always been duets, with Blaine. He touches those memories gingerly, and finds to his surprise that tonight, at least, they don’t hurt anymore, so he lets himself probe farther in and remembers the warmth and the joy of singing for the holidays, dives deeper and thinks about what he’d like to sing for his old friends and teacher.

“I think you should perform...” Rachel rattles off a list as Kurt navigates the few intersections between the high school and the coffee shop.

The parking lot is packed and Kurt finally manages to squeeze into a spot under a streetlamp decorated with truly tacky red plastic ribbon and a weather-beaten wreath. Rachel unplugs her iPod and begins scrolling through it as Kurt puts the car in park and unlatches his seat belt. “You coming?”

“Yes, just a second...” Rachel reaches blindly for the door, focused entirely on song selection, and Kurt rolls his eyes and pushes his door open, fighting a shiver as the night-cold air rushes into the warm interior. Rachel follows a moment later, iPod clutched in one hand, and wraps one of her arms around Kurt’s.

“Maybe Finn and I can reprise one of our classic successes from previous years,” she muses, hopping away for a moment to avoid a puddle of icy slush.

Kurt reaches out to steady her as she hops back. “Rachel, were you and Finn ever actually not fighting for the holidays? Do you have anything in your repertoire that isn’t regretful or heartbroken?”

“There’s nothing wrong with emotion, Kurt,” Rachel says, reaching the outer door of the shop first and shouldering her way through. “At least it’s better than inappropriately flirtatious songs about date rape.”

“It wasn’t -” Kurt reaches a hand out for the inner door and pulls it open for Rachel. “You know what? I’m not having that argument again. I’m just saying, it’s the one time all year you’ve gotten to be with Finn, you should really find a different, non-pining angle to sing about.”

The closing door squeezes a last puff of cold air into the shop, and then the warm coffee-scented air of the Lima Bean settles down around them. Kurt sees the head of dark curls as he turns to Rachel, who's in the middle of saying something indignant. In the last five months he's done so many double takes, black hair and bright smiles that catch his eye, and his gaze returns for a second glance before he can think about it.

There's no mistaking him.

Not only the curls but the slope of his shoulder in a gray wool coat that Kurt knows the texture of, the familiar curve of his neck that Kurt's head fits perfectly into, the red scarf Kurt had borrowed for a week the first winter they’d known each other and had never wanted to give back. Right there, less than ten feet away.

For a moment Kurt can't move, mind buzzing, dimly wondering if he should make the first move or if he should wait for Blaine to turn around and notice him. Even if he waits it won't take long, Kurt's voice is anything but mistakable and he knows that as soon as he opens his mouth again Blaine will know he's there. His stomach knots in anticipation and he loses the thread of what Rachel is saying entirely.

He’s so thrown that it takes him another long moment to notice the boy standing next to Blaine, chatting easily with him. He's tall and handsome in an easy, artsy sort of way; and Blaine, his face creased in a laugh, is bright and animated. An old friend, or a cousin - but then Kurt sees bright plaid wool wrapped around his throat, recognizes that scarf, too, it’s Blaine’s, and why would he be wearing Blaine’s scarf if - and suddenly Kurt’s out of time to work himself into denial, because Tall and Artsy shifts closer to Blaine to take his hand, and Blaine smiles and leans in to kiss him.

Kurt is in freefall. All gravity and sense of stability is suddenly gone. He is adrift, suddenly and without warning; alone in a vacuum. His mouth opens on a gasp but his lungs won't take in air. He can feel the color drain out of his face, a blush in reverse as the shock leaves his skin bloodless, drains from his veins and pools in his stomach which is tying itself in hot, nauseous knots. His vision narrows to a tunnel and all he can see is Blaine's lips on another boy's mouth, a hundred undreamed nightmares coming to life less than ten feet away as reality tears his grip on reality apart.

Rachel's droning breaks off abruptly as she turns to look at Kurt - his fingers must be digging into her arm. She looks at his face and flinches and follows his gaze across the crowded shop to Blaine, to him. And then, for the first time in his life, Kurt hears Rachel Berry swear.

"Oh fuck." She reaches around with her free hand and pries his fingers off her arm and then tucks her arm around his waist, turns him around and steers him back outside.

*

In the parking lot Kurt comes back to himself a little when Rachel wrestles the keys out of his coat pocket.  
"What are you - ?" But Rachel is insistent and Kurt doesn't have any fight in him just now, so he slides into the passenger seat while Rachel fumbles for the ignition lock.

He's not sure where she's taking them, just that they're driving, and Kurt really is going to have to take a look at the heating system, it's definitely sputtering out again. His feet are cold.

The road ahead is dark, and it's starting to snow, white flakes glowing in the headlights like winter fireflies.

It's Rachel, finally, who speaks, her voices small in the cold and dark. "I'm sorry, Kurt."

His mind turns the apology over slowly, stutteringly. His mind is stuck on observation, reluctant to process. "You knew."

"Yes, I did, and Kurt, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

"Who is he?" Maybe if he can put a name to the face it will seem more real, less like a nightmare, and he can begin to wake up.

"His name is Matthew Knox," she says hesitantly. "He's a freshman English major at Boston."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Kurt wonders why he's even surprised. It's hardly the first time he's been blindsided by Blaine's interest in someone else.

Rachel's hands twist nervously on the wheel. "I was going to, Kurt, I was going to tell you tonight - before the Exchange -"

"How thoughtful." Rachel winces. "Why didn't you tell me before? How long?" he demands.

"Since October." Rachel's voice is small.

"Is this why -" he can't bring himself to say it. The boys, the dates, all the pep talks about self-worth and finding someone who will appreciate him...

"No! I mean yes, but not like - Kurt - " Rachel pleads, but he holds on to his anger like a lifeline.

"I want to go home."

Rachel looks like she's going to say something else, but decides against it, and the rest of the drive home passes in silence.

Finn is there when he pushes through the front door, and he takes in Kurt's face, Rachel's wringing hands.

"Dude, what's wrong?" he asks, taking a step toward Kurt, and Kurt has no idea what Finn's reaction will be, he only knows he absolutely does not want to deal with it right now, and darts past him and up the stairs.

He can hear Finn's voice inquiring behind him, Rachel's answering in low tones before he swings his door shut.

He is Kurt Hummel. Kurt Hummel is strong. They will not see Kurt Hummel cry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New York in winter is dismal. The steel of the skyscrapers are pillars holding up the low gray sky, an icy, all-encompassing monolith.
> 
> After Christmas, Kurt tries to move on.

It's surprisingly easy to avoid everyone over the next few days. Rachel pleads but he is adamant; he is not going to the Exchange, not if there is the slightest chance that they will be there, and even if they aren't he doesn't want his old fellow Glee members to see him and pity him. Bad enough they're probably all gossiping behind his back, anyway. On the day of the Exchange he turns off his phone and spends the afternoon cleaning the basement, the only part of the house, except Finn's room, he hasn't tackled yet.

Christmas comes and goes but it's lost its magic, and Kurt spends the week after plowing through books for his spring classes and ignoring the doorbell.

By the time New Year's Eve arrives, he is going stir crazy. The party at Rachel's is out of the question. He hasn't spoken to Rachel since Christmas, and he is absolutely not going to be anywhere Blaine might be. He doesn't even know if Matt will be there, he just knows he cannot be in the same room as his ex right now. His dad and Carole have gone over to one of Carole's friend's, and after Finn leaves for the New Directions party Kurt's left in a dark and quiet house.

And that's how he finds himself, of all places, outside Miss Corcoran's apartment, clutching the strap of his messenger bag with one hand while he raises the other to knock.

Puck pulls the door open and blinks in surprise. "What are you doing here?" he asks, not unkindly. "I haven't seen you since - whatever." He shrugs and leaves the door open and turns back into the apartment, and Kurt follows hesitantly.

"I heard you were babysitting tonight. I, um, didn't feel like going to the party and wondered if you wanted some company."

Puck turns once he reaches the kitchen and looks at him. "Finn told me what happened with your boy. That totally blows, man, sorry."

Kurt shrugs awkwardly, not sure what to say to that. "You can chill with us if you want," Puck continues, pulling open the fridge. "Want anything to drink? We've got apple juice, milk, I think Shelby left a case of water out on the porch."

"Water's fine, thank you." Kurt undoes his coat and lays it carefully over the back of the couch while Puck tromps over to the sliding door. He's just perched himself gingerly on the edge of the cushion when a small blonde munchkin comes tearing around a corner, trailing a pink blanket behind her.

"Puuuuuuuuuuck!" she giggles, skidding around the side of the couch. She comes to a sudden halt when she sees Kurt and stands there staring at him, eyes wide and mouth open.

"Hey, Beth, you remember Kurt, don't you?" Puck smiles, gentler than Kurt's ever seen him, and hands him a water bottle before he scoops up his daughter. "He was in Daddy's choir at school, right?"

"Kurt," Beth repeats solemnly, eyeing him up and down. Kurt resists the urge to fidget. A two-and-a-half-year-old should not have such a wise-looking stare. Beth, apparently, approves of what she sees, because she nods and says, still solemn, "hi."

"Hi, Beth," he smiles, and she squirms in Puck's arms until he puts her down. She walks over to Kurt and rests her hands on his knees, staring up at his face.

"You sing?" she chirps.

Kurt glances up at Puck, who nods. "Yeah, I do."

"You should sing with us."

"You want a song, sweetie?" Puck asks, and Beth nods, tiny fingers digging into the fabric of Kurt's pants.

"What do you say we give the lady a song? You still sing, Hummel?" Puck heads for a guitar stand in the corner of the room.

"Of cou - " Kurt begins, but he is distracted by small hands grabbing onto his jeans and the arm of his sweater and hauling herself up onto his lap.

"Whoa, Beth - Puck -" Beth is very cute, yes, but Kurt's experience with toddlers is extremely limited. He has never held one before, and he has certainly never had one climbing on him like he's a human jungle gym.  
Puck looks over and chuckles as Beth settles herself down in Kurt's lap, a small, warm, squirmy weight.

"She likes you. Don't worry about it, you're doing fine." He sits down on the chair across from Kurt and Beth, beginning to strum softly on the guitar, aimless notes and chords.

"Anderson was at the exchange last week," he says suddenly, and Kurt tenses. It's a nice distraction to sit with an adorable toddler and an old friend he never really knew that well, and he's not sure he wants to talk about Blaine right now.

"Oh?" he finally settles on for a noncommittal response, and carefully straightens a little plastic barrette in Beth's curls.

"Yeah. He asked if you were coming. Finn said you were hanging out with your dad."

Kurt lets out a frustrated sigh. "I just couldn't - after last week I didn't want to - I don't know why I'm even surprised. You think I'd see it coming by now. First it was Jeremiah and that stupid song, like he couldn't possibly be into anyone else but me." Puck nods sympathetically; there's always been a bizarre osmosis between Dalton gossip and McKinley gossip, no wonder he knows. "And then that whole thing with him dating Rachel. I was a jerk about that too, no wonder he's happier with somebody else." He knows he must sound petulant, but it feels good to rant to someone who won't try to get protective, like Finn or Mercedes, and whom he doesn't blame, like Rachel.

Puck just nods again and starts to pick out a melody, one that Kurt doesn't recognize, but the aimless notes begin to flow into patterns the melody settles into a tempo, pensive and a little bit haunting as Puck starts to sing.

Looking down on empty streets, all she can see  
Are the dreams all made solid  
Are the dreams all made real

She pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam  
She pictures a soul  
With no leak at the seam

Kurt doesn't know the song, but old habits die hard and after a few bad notes he finds a harmony and joins in with Puck for the chorus.

Dreaming of Mercy Street  
Swear they moved that sign  
Dreaming of mercy  
In your daddy's arms

At school, music had become just one more chore, one more lesson to be practiced and analyzed and memorized until it had been stripped of all meaning and feeling. Kurt had forgotten that singing could be like this, cathartic and cleansing as the notes reached down into his lungs and plucked at the shock and the hurt and the dislocation that had been festering in his veins. It wasn't healing, not yet; it couldn't be, when he'd only just begun to mourn a relationship he only now knows, really knows, has been dead for months.

As the last notes fade out Kurt looks down at the little girl snuggling into him, her eyelids beginning to droop, and tentatively rubs her back with two fingers. He remembers a time when this baby had seemed like nothing but a shattering, life-altering mistake, remembers the drama and the heartache, knows that Quinn is still healing. But now he can see the good that came of it, the happiness and the joy, lives given second chances and making something wonderful of them.

I have been changed for good...

He remembers a stage, remembers the thrill of a dream the joy of which he'd since deferred. If this - Kurt brushes a lock of hair away from Beth's face as she starts to mouth on the corner of a pink blanket - can come from so much pain, perhaps - perhaps the future isn't so dark for him after all.

He lets Puck put an album onto his iPod before he leaves, and plugs it into his stereo as he pulls out of the parking lot. The roads are dark and quiet, and Kurt feels the freshness of the new year and the potential of Beth's tiny hands in his skin as he drives. The hurt is still there, dark and bruised, and he's not sure if Peter Gabriel will ever really be his thing, but he's grateful for music he doesn't know and that carries no memories and no associations, that doesn't have to be about anything but moving on.

*

At the end of winter break his dad drives him to the airport and hugs him goodbye at security, and from there it's just Kurt until he gets to the gate and sees the back of Rachel's head, bowed over something in her lap. He sits down across from her, and as he digs in his bag for his phone he can see her out of the corner of his eyes; she looks up from her notebook with a startled glance that quickly shifts to guilt, and he revels in that a little vindictively.

The whole flight back is strained. His and Rachel's seats are next to each other, of course, they'd booked their flights together weeks ago. Several times it looks as though she's going to say something, but Kurt keeps his eyes focused on his book and ignores her.

When they land in New York, though, Rachel pulls herself up as they're waiting at the baggage claim.

"I think I owe you a cup of coffee."

They share a cab back to campus and end up at a corner table in the Starbucks around the corner from the dorms, their suitcases tucked awkwardly under their knees.

"I really am sorry, Kurt," Rachel says, hands wrapped around her cup. "I never meant to hurt you like that."

"I know," Kurt says, drawing patterns in his foam with a stirrer. "I just...wish you'd told me sooner."

"What am I, your personal private investigator?" Rachel kicks his leg under the table playfully.

"All right, all right, from now on, if I want the scoop on my ex, I'll ask you," Kurt nudges her ankle under the table. His smile is thin, though, and he knows that he won't. "What classes do you have Monday?"

Rachel takes the conversation shift for the forgiveness that it is, and they let the memory of Ohio drift away in the cold and exhaust and coffee fumes of New York.

*

New York in winter is dismal. The steel of the skyscrapers are pillars holding up the low gray sky, an icy, all-encompassing monolith.

It's lonely, too; he's busy and Rachel's busy and as everyone buckles down for a new semester there seems to be less and less time to be spent on Skype calls to California or hanging out in the common room.

The old things that had gotten him through the first round of homesickness in September are no longer comforting. He clears dozens of songs off his iPod and replaces them with new music, songs he doesn't know, isn't sure he likes, but that he found on Pandora and that he thinks he can work with. The lingering hurt is less easy to excise, but hurt with the distraction of new surroundings is still better than hurt without.

*

And so at the end of January Kurt finds himself at the audition for the spring recital. The room is hot, as all the voice rooms seem to be, a constant reminder of all the little details separating New York and the underheated rooms of McKinley. Kurt is glad he's opted out of layers and is wearing only dark jeans and a t-shirt, something silk-screened that Finn had given him for his last birthday. He feels a little self conscious standing there and waiting for his turn, in jeans that feel too loose and a shirt that feels too tight, but it's a novel feeling and he clings to it for that.

When his name is called and his song is cued up, Kurt launches into All Time Low’s “Weightless.” He thinks he should feel ridiculous; pop punk isn't his thing. But isn't college about trying new things, about pushing yourself outside of what is familiar? It's almost a blessing that the music feels so foreign, and he can forget his own heartbreak in someone else’s lyrics.

He gets a surprised but approving nod from the director, and as he's collecting his coat and bag by the door he's stopped by a hand on his arm.

"Hey, that was great." Kurt vaguely recognizes the boy from some of his classes last semester, but can't put a name to the face.

"Oh. Um, thank you."

He holds the door for Kurt while Kurt does up the buttons on his coat, still talking. "It was a pretty straight cover, though, especially with the backing track you had. Did you consider stripping it down, maybe going acoustic?"

"I - thought about it, yeah, but I couldn't find anybody to help out with it in time for the audition."

"Well, if you ever want to keep working on it, let me know. I'd be happy to help." He smiles and puts out his hand. "I'm Timothy, by the way."

Kurt shakes his hand. "Kurt. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Timothy grins. "Hey, want to grab lunch?"

His grin is electric, and Kurt can feel the sparks of it in his hand before Timothy lets it drop. He’s surprised how easy it is to smile back and say "Of course."

*

New York is cold but the room where his rehearsal group is gathered is warm. Kurt's fingers are stiff as he types out a text to Rachel that he won’t be back til late, but his mind is clear - maybe a little slow, but clear - as he catches eyes with Timothy across the room.

After lunch that first day there had been other meetings, mostly to practice but more often, recently, just to hang out. There’s a spark of could-be-something, in those not-quite-dates, that Kurt isn’t sure if he wants but that he longs for. Timothy's eyes follow him around the room and something curls, nervous and hot, inside of Kurt as he works his way through another drink and from shyness to coyness.

By the end of the night they're on the couch together, Timothy sprawled loosely over the cushions and Kurt perched carefully on the arm, one hand curled around his half-empty glass and the other combing through Timothy's hair. It's a new feeling, this kind of boldness, and if Kurt were older he'd know it only feels so adult because he's so young, but it's thrilling.

Warmth threads its way through him as the room empties around them, goodnights and goodbyes called over the rustle of coats and boots being pulled on. Kurt slides off the armrest and into the small space next to Timothy, shoulder pressing against shoulder and heat bleeding through the seams of his jeans. He’d forgotten how warm another human being can be.

When everyone else has left Timothy slides back further, eyeing Kurt down the length of his own body, holds out his arms and murmurs "come here." Kurt hesitates, just a moment, but Timothy's eyes are inviting and a little dark and Kurt is tired of being alone and cold and he misses this, misses being close to someone. So he goes.

Kurt can feel every breath, every scratch of clothing, every twitch of nervous hands as he lays himself down. The couch is narrow and it's inevitable that Kurt ends up half-lying on top of Timothy, awkwardly shifting his limbs to fit. The sweater Timothy's wearing is thick and warm with the heat of his body, and Kurt feels the softness of the yarn on his fingertips, the prickle of the wool on the inside of his wrists, as he slides his hands around Timothy's shoulders.

Before he's ready for it Timothy's arms come up and hold him tight around the waist, and Kurt opens his mouth to breathe through the instinct to flinch as Timothy's hands find the hem of his shirt and begin working their way under, his fingertips unexpectedly cool against Kurt's skin.

"You're really pretty." Timothy's words aren't slurred but his eyes are glassy in the studded glow of Christmas lights still strung around the window. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

"Not recently." Kurt's not sure what expression his mouth is trying to work its way into but it ends up in a smirk, pleased but also feeling something like pride bubbling up. So someone else thinks he’s fabulous. Kurt Hummel doesn't need the memory of touches that turned cold or endearments that turned to taunts.

"That's a shame," Timothy whispers and Kurt can feel the gust of his breath across his cheek. Timothy's hands slide further up his back, tracing his spine and shoulderblades. Kurt is unfamiliar with the dialect of the request couched in his touch, but he knows the language and rolls his shoulders, ducking his head so Timothy can pull his shirt up and off.

His skin prickles in the cool of the room; abandoned by the bodies of their classmates the temperature is falling and Kurt suddenly wants to be warmer, closer, so he shifts his weight to his knees and tugs at the hem of Timothy's sweater.

Some more awkward shifting (was it always this clumsy, never knowing where to rest his hands or put his weight?) and Timothy's sweater is off, his hair tousled, and before he can decide whether it's a good idea or not (they're shirtless together on a couch, how could it get any worse?) Kurt is finger-combing Timothy's pale locks again, smoothing out the static and tucking them back into place.

He doesn't know where this is going but it's clearly going somewhere, and so he doesn't feel anything, not even surprise, when Timothy arcs his neck up to press his mouth against Kurt's.

His lips are dry and slightly warm, and as Kurt shifts against him to get a better angle, bare skin sliding against bare skin, he doesn't even stop to wonder whether this should be feeling more awkward than it is, he just closes his eyes and lets himself drift in the warmth of Timothy's body. Long minutes pass, just lips and tongues dancing uncertainly around each other, setting new rhythms in unfamiliar mouths.

When Kurt feels Timothy's hands trace lower on his back, he has to take a breath before he can relax into it. Timothy’s cool fingers trace lines of goosebumps down his waist and skim over the leather of his belt before dipping lower. He’s distracted for a moment by the soft sting of teeth on the side of his neck, and then he feels the touch of a palm over his bottom, pressing into the denim of his jeans. Heat flares in him, warm and sudden, burning out his hesitation and leaving for a moment just relief and release. He wants this, he needs this, and he kisses Timothy again, a little sloppy, as his hands continue their exploration of Kurt’s body.

There's no sudden shock, no thought that douses his mind with metaphorical cold water, no touch that intimidates or frightens him. There's only a blossoming realization, a fading spark even as want spirals up tight inside of him. Not right.

Kurt pulls his mouth away, leans back on his knees, fights a sudden shiver as the chill air of the room floods between them. Timothy tries to chase his lips but Kurt pushes him back with fingertips to his chest, five burning points of final contact. “I - I should go," Kurt stammers. He knows he should, even without knowing exactly why. So why is it so hard to say?

Timothy's face flickers through a flip-book of emotion, finally setting into a vague discomfort. "Why?” he demands, sliding his hand around Kurt's waist, and Kurt fights the pull of warmth, sits up all the way, slides back into the small space between Timothy's feet at the end of the couch. Kurt doesn't even know how or where to begin so he says nothing, fumbles instead for his shirt, pulls the sleeves back right side out, twists to face away as he puts it back on, suddenly embarrassed to be so uncovered. "Sorry," he manages to squeak out, refastening the button at his throat and turning back in time to see the confusion in Timothy's face shift to the anger of embarrassment before he schools his features into aloofness.

The memory of warmth and the pull of Timothy's body is strong so Kurt blinks his eyes closed, stands on shaky legs, scoops up his coat off a chair, runs a hand through his hair, rearranging it back into some semblance of order. By the time he’s at the door and glances back to the couch he is almost surprised to see Timothy there, still half-naked and looking hurt. Kurt’s not sure what, exactly, just happened, but things like this don't happen to Kurt and it shocks him suddenly that, yes, they do, and this is something that did happen and will not un-happen. His fingers feel numb on the handle and he misjudges the necessary force when he swings it shut, nearly setting the hinges rattling with the slam of it.

On the walk home, Kurt isn’t sure what he feels. He sees the sharp shadows of the streets and the bright flare of the lights in the windows of buildings and cars driving past but the city feels and sounds distant, like a stage set of the city and not living, breathing New York. He doesn't know what his body is doing; he might be slouched over against the cold, hands shoved deep into pockets; he might be striding, chin up, back straight. He simply can't feel his spine, and Kurt doubts he could control it even if he could. He is a vacuum, devoid of sensations; even his mind is empty, his lack-of-thoughts echoing loudly in the cavern of his brain, a creeping numbness settling into his nerves.

When Kurt reaches his floor it's silent and the glare of the fluorescent lights is unkind, lacing Kurt's skin with a too-pale glow as he fumbles with his key and pushes open his door and retreats gratefully into the dark of his room, lit only with the light from the street blow and the rhythmic pulse of lights on the stereo display.

Patrick is gone for the weekend and Kurt hangs his coat up without turning on the lights, kicks his shoes off, and then stands in the middle of the carpet, not knowing what to do now. What are you supposed to do after you do...that? Call someone and brag? Call someone and cry? He doesn't really feel like crying and the thought of bragging sends the first niggling shoots of shame through his stomach. He shivers; Patrick must have turned the radiator off before he left. Kurt finds the knob in the dark and gives it a twist, the hiss of pent-up steam the only sound in the room other than his own breath.

He stands and shivers in front of the radiator for a long moment, taking deep breaths, willing his heart to slow in his chest, letting the ancient coils warm the room too fast. The heat chases out the numbness and the anxiety but leaves cold behind, skims over his skin but does not sink into it. His bones feel cold.

Kurt pulls the extra blanket off of Patrick's bed and drapes it over his own before he crawls in, curling himself together and letting exhaustion wash over him, warring with the cold lodged in his body to pull him towards sleep.

*

Despite the extra blanket, when Kurt wakes in the morning he's still not warm enough: the chill has spread from his bones into his mind, where it crawls through his memory, riming the recollections of last night with hazy frost. They hadn't done much; kissing with shirts off barely registers on the one-night-stand meter. But his hands twitch in embarrassment at the memory of Timothy's fingers on his back, of their mouths together, of his own moment of abandon and wanting. Kurt had gotten used to touches meaning something, to whispered words weaving together bodies in the dark; not empty pleasure and the cool lure of more.

At the same time, he aches at the chill in his core and wonders whether if he'd given in to more whether he'd feel this cold now; wonders whether he'd been a prude, whether he'd missed his chance at something that could have been really great. They’d been on the verge of something, he and Timothy, before last night, but Kurt has a feeling that after running out of there his chances are pretty much done for.

He tries to forget about it in the shower, to think about anything else - the faint headache at his temple, the lab report he has due Monday, whether or not he should call Finn tonight, just to catch up - but he can’t shake the lingering haze. In the mirror, as he towels off his hair, he finds the faint purpling on his throat, the mark from Timothy’s teeth.

Rachel finds him later that afternoon, curled up on his bed in Finn’s old sweatshirt, a cold mug of tea on his desk and his iTunes set on something depressing.

“Kurt?” she hesitates in the doorway. “Are you okay?”

He doesn’t know what to say, so he just buries his face in his pillow and shakes his head. He feels the bed dip as Rachel sits down on the edge.

“What happened? Was it Timothy?” He feels her fingers in his hair, stroking softly, and nods into the pillow.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks tentatively, and after a day of cold confusion it’s Rachel’s hand on his forehead and the soft concern in her voice that finally does him in.

She pets his hair gently as he cries and murmurs reassuringly as he spills out the story. He's afraid she'll be upset - Rachel had lobbied heavily for Timothy since they'd begun hanging out, and she can be temperamental and Kurt doesn't want to lose what support he has. But when he turns his head to wipe his eyes on his sleeve she just looks worried.

He's out of kleenex so she runs down the hall to the bathroom for toilet paper for tissues, and when she comes back she climbs up on the bed again and snuggles down, nestling into his chest like a particularly large lovey.

"My partner for my duet is slacking and my own performance is suffering in the absence of sufficient talent to work off of," she declares, nudging him back so that she can fit her head on the pillow. and Kurt can't help but smile a little at her (only slightly) put-on indignation. "You have to come practice with me tomorrow."

"Of course." He muffles a yawn in Rachel's shoulder. The fog in his brain is beginning to thin out, and he can feel himself begin to relax into the comfort of the bed. Rachel is humming little bars along with the music coming from his computer, and he drifts off to the sound of her voice.

*

The whole next week is just a mess.

Monday afternoon he has rehearsal with Timothy, and Kurt entertains a faint hope, as he rearranges his sheet music on the stand in the practice room, that they can just be professionals about it. Or better yet, friends, and just move beyond the whole thing.

He thinks it might actually be possible when Timothy slouches into the room, fifteen minutes late, color flushing his cheeks as he glances at Kurt and sets down is guitar. But after that he barely makes eye contact, and Kurt swallows a sigh and straightens his spine. He should have known better.

The next forty minutes are some sort of exercise in torture by awkward. Timothy refuses to look at him, plays his part with a mechanical precision in total silence. Kurt, nervy and anxious, sings badly and can't keep his eyes off Timothy's hands on the guitar strings, remembers them tracing across his own bare skin instead of metal and nylon.

"Look, can we talk about this?" he finally says as Timothy's packing up his instrument at the end of the period. It comes out more belligerently than he had intended, but he's been on edge for an hour now.

"What is there to talk about?" Timothy snaps the clasps on his case closed one by one.

"I know that the other night was...weird...but -" Timothy flushes again and Kurt takes a deep breath and tries to get a hold of himself. "but - we have a performance to pull together, and - "

Red-faced, Timothy cuts him off. "You know what? I don't even want to hear it.”He snaps the last clasp closed with a scornful twist of his wrist. "Do you think that if we keep playing together you can keep stringing me along? Play hot and cold for another two months? You're a fucking tease, Kurt Hummel."

The unexpected venom of the accusation is like a slap to the face and Kurt recoils as if it were one. That's not what he meant, that's never what he meant to do. His voice is shrill, even to his own ears, with hurt and humiliation.

"Just because I don't want to fuck a guy after - one night -" Kurt's ears are burning and he's never been more grateful for a soundproofed room. "Excuse me if that makes me too good for you."

"Go to hell, Kurt." Timothy picks up his guitar case and slams the door behind him, leaving Kurt behind him with shaking hands and stinging eyes.

Somehow, Kurt had thought he’d leave the pre-performance drama behind him when he’d left McKinley. He really should have known better.

 

Dr. Stephens, the brilliant, rather (what’s the word?) director is sympathetic but entirely unhelpful when Kurt appeals to her. Unable to tell her the exact nature and cause of his falling out with Timothy, Kurt can’t quite impart to her how impossible it’s going to be to work with him.

“Kurt, dear, conflicts are a natural part of working with other artists.” Dr. Stephens smiles absently at him from behind thick-lensed glasses. “Part of learning how to be a professional performer is learning how to work those conflicts out in a constructive way.”

He stalks out of the meeting growing increasingly worried. This is his recital, he’s going to get graded on this, and in his current mood of doubt and self-recrimination he can’t believe he let himself get into this much of a mess, put his music career in so much jeopardy, over a boy. He misses, briefly but fiercely, his New Directions guys; Finn’s awkward but earnest leadership, Sam’s sweet stability, Mike’s apparent immunity to drama.

It probably shouldn’t surprise him, then, that it’s Rachel who comes to his rescue. Timothy skips their next three rehearsals - it’s Thursday now, dress rehearsal with the rest of the class is in a week, what is he going to do - and Rachel intercepts him at an intersection near the dorms. She stands out against the gray concrete of the city streets in a brilliantly colored raincoat like some sort of exotic desert flower.

“I’ve talked it over with Stephanie’s group. Several of them were...reluctant...but I have persuaded them that in the long run it is in their best interests to help a fellow performer in need.”

“What?” Kurt blinks water out of his eyes - he forgot an umbrella, his hair is going to be ruined -

“You can stop worrying about your recital piece. You can come join my roommate’s!” Rachel bounces on her toes, looking delighted. “If you want, that is.”

Kurt is relieved; he also has very little choice. “Rachel Berry, it would be an honor to share the stage with Stephanie.”

Stephanie’s groupmates are reluctant. As small a part as they’re working in for him Kurt’s still stealing some of their spotlight, but their resentment is still better than Timothy’s spitefulness. Kurt puts his head down and plows through the last minute practices and resolves, next year, to just go it alone.

By the night of the recital he’s worn out with rehearsing and tired of the looks from the other girls and he almost keeps napping through the nagging phone alarm telling him it’s time to meet Rachel for the walk over to the theater, glad that at least he doesn’t have to wade through the damp spring chill (how is it still raining?) alone.

When he knocks on her door, though, Rachel doesn’t immediately answer. He can hear a soft scuffle on the other side and a voice, not Rachel’s - low, male, pitched in inquiry. Rachel responds but Kurt can’t make out the words, and then the door opens a few inches, her face peering out.

“I’m so sorry,” she starts in a whispered rush. “Something - just came up, can you make it to the theater by yourself?”

Kurt nods slowly, confused. He knows better than to jump to conclusions, but this is strange.

“Of course, is everything okay?” he matches her whisper with his own, trying to steal a glance into the room over Rachel’s head, but the narrow sliver visible to him is empty. Rachel nods vigorously.

“Yes! Of course! Break a leg! See you there!” She clicks the door shut, and Kurt is alone in the hallway. It’s all too strange, and he has a performance to prepare for, so he readjusts his bag and sets off into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song credits:
> 
> Weightless, by All Time Low  
> Mercy Street, by the incomparable Peter Gabriel


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blaine is silent and Kurt can’t see them now but he knows those eyes are still on him, and the anxiety in his nerves finally makes his body stutter, his breath hitching in his chest as he tries to catch it. He asks before he thinks about it, because it’s the one thing making Blaine’s presence terrible and something edging close to unbearable, the thing that is keeping Kurt’s feet rooted to the floor and his hands numb as he puts the sponges and bottle away.

Packing up his side of the room should not take this long. Kurt had had plans involving lists and boxes and organization, but no one had told him how much work and stress and time college finals would be, and how badly he’d want to just collapse on his bed at the end of them instead of starting in on boxing up nine months of his life. He can’t even blame a roommate for the mess this place is right now; Patrick had finished finals early and had headed home for New Jersey with a wave and far too few boxes in tow for him to be entirely human. 

At the bottom of his hamper Kurt finds his "punk" jeans - god, what had he been thinking? There are even artful attempts at fraying around the hip and knees. They get tossed in the suitcase to be brought home - maybe he can work some fashion triage on them, or, as a last resort, cut them down to shorts. There's the program from the spring recital - Rachel had avoided him that entire weekend, he's still not sure why - that he tucks into a shoebox along with a birthday card from his dad and Carole and the ticket stubs from the shows he's seen with Rachel.

He glances only briefly at a packet of paper before he tosses it in his recycle bin. It's the application for an internship he had finally decided he didn't really want. It's not that he'd been afraid he wouldn't get it; in fact, he'd been fairly sure that he would, not that slim chances would have stopped him in any case.

He just wants to go home. He misses his dad, and he wants a few months in a familiar place to rest and recharge before he comes back to face the city again. Besides, it's easier to think of being back in Lima now that he's found his way out of there.

Under his bed he finds rumpled scripts he'd practiced, for class and then just for fun, with the girls he'd sung with at the recital. After a few days of practices and resentment bordering on hostility, Lydia had knocked on his door in a crisis over what to wear for a date that night. He'd sent her on her way two hours later, the date had been a success, Lydia and Todd are still together, and Kurt had thenceforth been officially adopted into the gaggle. They'd all managed to get into the same scriptwriting class in the fall, and Kurt has more than a few ideas he's eager to try out with them.

In a corner, on the floor trapped between his dresser and his desk, is a glove that Kurt doesn't immediately recognize. He assumes it's Todd's and tosses it on a pile to bring to his gaggle for distribution until the scratch of fabric against his fingers sparks a memory. It's Timothy's, left forgotten in his room during an afternoon of studying and laughter and shy flirtation.

He thinks of that January night, months ago now, thinks of the pull of human warmth, the force of his own emotion, and his mind dances to Blaine's temper, the force and the heat of it, never directed at Kurt except once.

And Kurt understands, then.

It all mixes in his head in a thorny tangle; Blaine's last snapped words to him, his own voice high and thin, Timothy's hurt and accusations, the drag of warm fingertips and hot mouths and lungs drawing breath to kiss or shout. It comes to him in a shivering shock, the latent understanding sparking to the surface: the force of desire and emotion too powerful to be checked or deflected carried in the echoes of voices, his own as well as theirs, raised in scorn that was not earned and anger that was not blameless.

The recognition, the power and pull of desire - emotional as well as physical - that had sometimes frightened him a little, in Blaine, he can see now has always been there in himself. The realization takes the wind out of him, and he sits there on the edge of his bed holding a gritty knitted glove for a long moment.

When the song playing over his iPod changes he stands, takes a breath, tosses the glove in the trash. It may not have been his fault, but he is far from guiltless.

*  
It's a bright, cool day in early June when Kurt pulls into the parking lot at McKinley. After he finds a spot in his - what had used to be his - usual row, he turns off the ignition and spends a moment just staring at the front steps of the building. It's jarring, how it looks after a year, alien in its familiarity. It should feel significant, coming back here; instead, it is some strange blend of surreal and utterly normal.

Inside, everything, the hallways, the lockers, the classrooms, even the students, seem smaller. Had his class really looked so young? The school smells the same, though, dust and industrial cleaner and old paint. He passes his old locker; a tiny freshman is struggling to fit a biology textbook onto the top shelf. There's still a scuff of tape on the door from the birthday balloons Brittany had taped there when he turned eighteen.

There's a new trophy in the case outside the choir room, but just one. The New Directions had placed at Sectionals last fall but hadn't been able to pull itself together for Regionals; Artie's good-natured despair had taken some of the sting out of the loss when Kurt had read about it on Facebook, but it still hurts a little to think of the group he’d invested so much time and energy into falling from grace.

He pauses outside the door for a moment, feeling breathless. It's not the first homecoming he's had here, but this time, he's not sure how much he belongs anymore.

When he taps on the frame of the open door it's Sam who sees him first, and his face splits into a wide grin.

"Hey, man!" Sam raises his hand in a wave and as Kurt shoots him a smile in return Mr. Schue turns around as well, and a group of students Kurt doesn't recognize, standing huddled around the piano, look up towards the door.

"Kurt!" his old teacher exclaims, waving him into the room. "Welcome back! Guys," he says, turning back to the students, who are sliding into the chairs along the risers, "For those of you who don't know him, this is Kurt Hummel, one of the reigning champions of the New Directions!"

It's cheesy but familiar, and Kurt bobs a bow as one or two students clap politely. Artie fist-pumps and gives Kurt a high five as he rolls past. Sugar glomps him in a side-hug, and Kurt pats her on the back awkwardly before she lets go and plops down in the front row, enthusiasm personified.

He doesn't know the rest of them, and as they eye him with a mix of curiosity and awe Kurt suddenly feels that he's the interloper here in their classroom, not that they are strangers in his.

"We were just discussing plans for keeping in vocal shape over the summer. What do you think of a choir camp for a week in July?"

"That sounds great!" Kurt folds himself down onto the piano bench and hooks his hands over his knees while they finish up the discussion. A week at a campground, surrounded by nothing but music and each other? It sounds like a wonderful disaster, and Kurt is both sorry he's out of it and glad Mr. Schue waited until now to try out this particular idea. He wonders if this group is as romantically dysfunctional and drama-prone as his own cohort had been, and decides that, as long as he's not immediately involved in it, that part would be the most fun.

"Well," Schue claps his hand as a last point is settled, and two girls bickering in the back fall silent, giving each other pointed glares before they turn towards the front again. "I'll turn the floor over now to our guest. Kurt, why don't you tell us what you've been up to?"

He supposes that this is why he came, what he’s been waiting for for a year, the chance to show McKinley that he made something of himself. So Kurt stands and tells them about New York, about his school and the city and his life outside of Lima, Ohio. He can see it on them; not so much on Artie, or Sam, they've fought their own battles and know their own way out already. But these kids, they're already struggling with being fish in a pond far too small for them. He can tell from the looks on their faces that to them he's half rock star, half lifeline, and he'd thought about what coming back to McKinley would mean for him but he hadn't thought what it would mean to them.

He feels selfish, then, small in his own confusion. He's still working out who he is and what he wants his life to be, what right does he have to stand here like some sort of role model? He doesn't even know these kids; this is a room full of personalities and relationships he’s ignorant of, with memories and experiences he hasn't shared. 

Before he'd gotten here Kurt had agonized over what to sing; he knew the chance would be offered and was hardly going to pass up the opportunity. But now it comes to him, what they need to hear and what he needs to sing, and at Mr. Schue's nod he starts the melody, tapping his hand on his leg to keep time.

It's that time of year  
Leave all our hopelessnesses aside  
If just for a little while  
Tears stop right here  
I know we've all had a bumpy ride.  
I'm secretly on your side  
Get me outta here  
Get me outta here

*

Friday, August 23, 2013, 08:26 a.m.

"Note to self: if Finn ever offers to change my oil again, make sure he actually screws the lug nuts back in. Tightly. That, or make sure to leave enough time in my schedule so that the subsequent oil spill is less of an inconvenience than the Deepwater Horizon. I should seriously ban Rachel from the shop when any of the guys are working, she's a terrible distraction. I can't even believe she and Finn are still together, you know? They even managed to avoid any drama at Choir Camp. Which is good, because they were the oldest ones there by like two years and just no, but the calm is starting to make me nervous. At least Rachel has stopped worrying that their placidity is masking some sort of horrendous rift just lurking under the surface. Anyway. It's about eight thirty...yeah, eight twenty-seven right now, and I'm about an hour outside of Lima." 

(a few moments of low humming) 

"Summer was good. It went faster than I expected it to." 

(another pause) 

"I don't even know what I'm doing with this." (click)

09:14 a.m.

"Rachel Berry. I will kill you. You swiped my iPod. You literally took it out of my bag, which I had already put in the car, and did...I don't even know what you did to it. And now I am going to be stuck listening to country radio until I hit Akron in approximately eighteen hours. I know Todd put you up to this. Fucking English majors and their fucking obsession with stream-of-consciousness...what will you do if I just stay quiet this whole time, Todd? What will you base your epic Play of the Semester on if I listen to the radio for the whole ten hour drive?" 

(static and a crackling, whining guitar, more static) 

"I don't even get the country station out here, do I."

(click)

10:38 a.m.

"God, Ohio is boring. It's just one big, flat...thing. Why isn't it going faster?"

(Several minutes of silence except for the humming of an engine and an occasional outblown breath.)

"I thought it would feel different, going back. Everything always feels different than I thought it would. Even...  
I missed it, this summer. I don't think I had really expected to. I was scared, I think, I was scared of how much I wanted to go back home at the end of last year. I...how can I miss it there? I hate Lima. But it's okay, now. At least, it's better. Dad and Carole are there, and where Dad is is always going to be where home is. At least, until...  
I just thought it was going to be different.

“I'm just so glad I'm looking forward to going back. I can't wait, now, to be in New York. I missed it, while I was gone, and I'm so glad, because...because, if I wasn't happy there, then what was the...why did I...

“Why didn't I...

“Fuck.”

(a long pause)

“It's fine, it really is. I would never have given up New York. Even if I hated it, I couldn't ever regret it. I would never have been able to live with myself. Not that I've been such a treat to live with this past year, anyway. But it's getting better.

“I'm going to start looking for a job once classes start, I think. I don't know if I'll have time, but it can't hurt to look and it's been good, to stay busy. Maybe at the Starbucks on campus. Heh. Wouldn't that be ironic?

“I haven't seen any of the Warblers since Regionals. I feel a little bad about that, they were really great when I first got to Dalton. I guess by the end they weren't too happy with me, were they. There's an a cappella group at school, a couple of them, actually, you would... I thought about trying out for one, but it wasn't ever really my thing.”

(a few hummed bars of music)

11:32 a.m.

“Oh, hi there, Pennsylvania! Now I can go from being bored to death to accidentally driving off the side of your mountains and plummeting to my actual death. There. Ohio's gone. That feels good, doesn't it?”

02:48 p.m.

“I think the hardest thing this year has been learning how to be happy. I was never happy, at home. There were moments, sure, and times, but, on the whole, I never didn't want to be somewhere else. I don't think I ever realized just how unhappy I was until I was gone and I had something to compare it to. But by then everything was different anyway, and being sad wasn't just because I hated Ohio anymore. I think I just had...a lot of energy that I didn't know what to do with. Maybe it would have been easier if...I don't know. I guess there's always something to be upset about, isn’t there? And I think I put a lot of the energy I'd spent hating Ohio into hating myself. I know how melodramatic that sounds, and I don’t mean it like that. It was just easier to be miserable than to just shake myself off and try again. I want to fix that this year. I don't know exactly how or in what way or with what, but I want to at least try."

03:24 p.m.

"Come on, the speed limit is sixty-five! At least do that much if you're going to sit in the left lane where I can't pass you on the right because every semi in the lower forty-eight is on the road today."

04:06 p.m.

“And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I dooooon't, so here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my rooooad, and I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hoooope, it's a shot in the dark and right at my throoooat. 'Cause looking for heaven, for the devil in meeee, looking for heaven, for the devil in meeee, well what the hell I'm gonna let it happen to meeeeeee! Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh woaaah!”

05:12 p.m.

(a rattle, a splash, and a sharp gasp.) 

"Oh, shit, that's hot. Oww."

05:22 p.m.

“And as for fooortune and as for faaame, I never inviiited them in, though it seemed to the world they were all I desiiired. They are illuuusions, they are not the solutions they promised to be.”

(humming)

"Have I said too much? There's nothing more I can think of to say to you, but all you have to do is look at me to know that every - word - is - true!”

(a long pause)

"Yeah, I can work with that."

*

"Berry! Where have you been? We've been looking all over for you!" There's a clatter by the stage door and Rachel appears in a rustle of tafetta and swinging brown hair, eyes bright and smile wide. The ASM rolls his eyes and shuts the door behind her, and Kurt distinctly sees him mouth "diva" before he readjusts his headset and stalks off further backstage. The simmering cold war between the theatre students and the techies has been going on for as long as there have been tech operators, probably, and Rachel had managed to land herself early on the latters’ list of unfavorites. Tensions are running particularly high tonight, and the excitement of the performers is blending with the nerves of the crew backstage into a tangled mass of neuroses that only has a fifty percent chance of exploding into something disruptive or destructive. They'll pull it together, though; they always do.

Kurt feels charged, electric with it, and he bounces on his toes as Rachel scurries through the maze of ropes and curtains to his side. "No, really, where were you?" he asks, tipping his head to the side to undo a crick that had built up from too long hunched over the girls' hair in front of the mirrors downstairs. "I looked for you before I came up."

"Nowhere!" Rachel grins and she looks like the cat who has gotten the cream. She's grown into herself over this last year, and though she can now achieve calm and even something approaching collectedness, even that veneer is gone tonight and she is positively sparkling. The hum of hundreds of voices and the rustle of hundreds of people shedding outerwear and shifting in their seats bleeds through the heavy curtain; audiences have always had the power to electrify her.

"I was just thinking about Nationals our senior year." She drops her voice as another tech shoots her a dirty look. "Remember that?"

Kurt gives a whisper of a laugh. "When Finn spilled - god, what was it? - on me? I could have killed him." Rachel giggles with him, and he sighs. "That was amazing, though. There was such a scramble to get everything fixed, all the energy. He leans back against the backstage wall and smiles down at Rachel. "That was an incredible day, wasn't it?"

She beams. "It really was." Kurt remembers it; the frantic rush backstage to switch his tie and flip his shirt inside out to hide the stain; Mr. Schuester all but shoving him into place onstage; the thrum of the music through the stage and into his feet. It had been triumphant but it had been bittersweet, too, the last time New Directions had been together like that, but a year and a half later the sting of nostalgia is gone and Kurt just revels in the anticipation he can feel building out in the seats beyond the curtains, the pluck and drag of instruments tuning up, the unmistakable sounds of the magic of theatre coming to life. Tonight is going to be a good night, too.

It is a good night. Rachel vanishes for her number and returns to his side in the dark flushed and ecstatic, coasting on a wave of applause; Todd gets laughs and cheers for his monologue before disappearing back to the dressing rooms to type away at a midterm he has due on Monday

The audience is good, the audience is great, and Kurt waits for his turn with a slow-burning build of excitement. He itches to be out there, on that stage, under the lights, the audience faceless and full-voiced. It feels like it takes forever but finally the last number before his finishes, and he’s taking his place in the wings for his cue when Rachel appears beside him, bobbing in the dark. 

“Break a leg, Kurt!” she stands on her tiptoes and leans in as if to kiss him on the cheek but there’s a sudden glint of silver, a soft, sharp snick, and as the ASM whispers “Ready” Kurt’s tie suddenly ends two inches below the knot. 

“Rachel - Berry - “ Kurt has no words, he has to go on, and Rachel stands there and cackles, absolutely cackles, with laughter. “You’re insane!”

“Ready!” The ASM hisses, and Kurt is frantic, he can’t go on like this, he’s going to miss his cue and he’s tugging at his ruined tie when suddenly out of nowhere Rachel has another one, and as he pulls the severed one loose and over his head Rachel drapes the new one around his neck, the ASM is saying “hey, come on,” and Rachel’s fingers are deft on the knot, red and blue silk and Kurt hadn’t kept that tie, where did she even find it - and then small hands are pushing him out of the wings and onto the stage and his blood is singing with excitement and the best kind of nerves. The audience seems to sense it in him, they’re humming with it, almost, a whispered susurration of breaths held and attention tuned to him. He tosses his head back and rests his hand on his hip: this audience is his.

He almost wishes, for a moment, that he had picked a higher-energy song; tonight feels like a night for flair. But Kurt Hummel has never needed flash or glitter to be theatrical, and tonight, this song says everything he could possibly want to say.

*

Adrenaline and joy inflame his veins like sparks and he floats back offstage in the wake of the applause. Rachel is nowhere to be found, and Kurt touches old, familiar silk at his throat as he threads his way back downstairs to the dressing rooms. The show is nearly finished and the final numbers are being piped in over the intercom speakers, and the room is bustling with girls wriggling out of their costumes and pulling bobby pins out of their hair. As the theater above quiets and the dressing rooms begin to empty, Kurt keeps the buzzing high of his performance under his skin.

He’s the only one left when he finally changes out of his costume. He almost hates Rachel, just a little, for her little stunt earlier, but he loves her for it too much to be upset, and he smiles as he hangs his waistcoat up and undoes the striped tie. It’s a little crumpled, a little more worn than he remembers his being, but god knows where Rachel dug it out of. He turns it over in his hands, remembers his first days wearing it, auditioning in it in the same with the same song he’d brought the house down with tonight, and it seems absolutely perfect. It’s then that he notices it, initials inked on the back, a necessity at a boys’ school where everyone’s clothing was identical. B.A. 

Is this some kind of joke? He sits down in one of the makeup chairs, adrenaline making his hands unsteady as he drops the innocent piece of cloth and pulls out his sponges and his makeup remover. Where did Rachel get that? He knows she’s in touch with Blaine, but the sudden physical reminder of that reality is jarring. There are too many options and explanations and Kurt doesn’t know which one he wants to want right now, so he lets his mind drift white and hazy as he sponges foundation off his cheeks. 

He’s brought back to earth by a loud clatter, the noise of shouts and laughter drifting in from the hall, and he turns his head instinctively towards the sound. Someone’s standing in the doorway. 

Blaine is standing in the doorway. 

The white static humming in his mind suddenly snaps into tune, a high, whining note of shock, punctuated with the dotted staccato of fractured thoughts. Blaine can’t be here. Blaine is in Boston. Blaine is with Matt. 

It’s the first time he’s looked Blaine in the face since he turned his back and stormed out of Kurt’s house over a year ago, and he’d forgotten, honestly forgotten, how Blaine’s eyes could focus on him, like Kurt was the only thing in the world. They’re focused on him now, a wide-eyed hazel spark cutting across the room, a too-sharp reminder of what they had used to be to each other, when they had never needed words to communicate. He needs words now, and desperately, but Kurt has none.

Blaine shifts his weight, an unsureness in his posture that Kurt doesn’t recognize, and before Kurt can decide what to say Blaine opens his mouth, croaks out “hi.”

The tension that Kurt has been carrying under his skin from the high of his performance settles into his bones, his spine, an uncomfortable thrumming current that resonates with the pitch of disbelief in his brain. Out of the corner of his eye he can see silk, red and blue stripes, and it all clicks into place. The first words that trip dumbly out of his mouth sting on his tongue, the first thing he’s able to say coherently, the last his dramatic instincts know he should be saying, and he snorts and turns away from Blaine’s too-intense eyes.

“I’m going to kill Rachel.”

Blaine is silent and Kurt can’t see them now but he knows those eyes are still on him, and the anxiety in his nerves finally makes his body stutter, his breath hitching in his chest as he tries to catch it. He asks before he thinks about it, because it’s the one thing making Blaine’s presence terrible and something edging close to unbearable, the thing that is keeping Kurt’s feet rooted to the floor and his hands numb as he puts the sponges and bottle away. 

“How’s Matt?”

“I don’t know.” A pause. “We broke up.” 

That answer should make things simpler, it should make things better, but it does neither and only keys Kurt’s nerves up another pitch. It’s too much, it’s too sudden, and like the tie Kurt folds and slides into a side pocket of his bag he doesn’t know what it means or what he wants it to. 

“Where are you staying?” Practicalities he can handle, maybe details will unspool the confusion his life has so suddenly become. As soon as he asks, though, the answer is obvious and he speaks at the same time Blaine does: “With Rachel.” Of course he is. Because this is all Rachel’s fault.

“No. No you are not. No man should have to face those harpies for the night. We’ll find you a place that’s humane.”

His mouth has apparently run away from him and ahead of his brain; he knows he’s effectively asking Blaine to stay the night without him without knowing anything, absolutely anything, about why he’s here or what he wants or what Kurt even wants from him. But Kurt catches Blaine’s eyes as he snaps his bag closed, and there’s something there that makes him think that, no matter what might happen, it’s worth trying to find out what will.

“Stephanie’s not that bad,” Blaine says, and it takes a moment for the meaning of that statement to work its way through Kurt’s fraught brain. 

“You’ve actually met her?”

“I stayed with them last year,” Blaine says, “when I came up for your spring recital.” 

That’s another shock, and more pieces fall through the stretched-taut wires of Kurt’s mind, bouncing and clanging into something like place. He remembers things he’d forgotten since that weekend, Rachel’s excuses, a voice he hadn’t recognized at the time and god, how had he not known that was Blaine? “You did.” 

It’s a statement, not a question, but Blaine shrugs awkwardly anyway and Kurt can do tense but he doesn’t want to do awkward, they’ve never been awkward, so he tries to smile, something to reassure Blaine, of...what, he’s not entirely sure. That this could be anything, and he’s not taking any options off the table until he knows exactly what is going on, that he’s too confused and bewildered to even know what those options might be.

When Kurt stands Blaine offers to take his bag and it’s so innocently gentlemanly, so Blaine, and Kurt had forgotten that he could be like that. Forgotten, or made himself forget; either way, he declines and clings to the strap of it just to keep his hands from shaking. Blaine holds the door for him, though, winks him a smile that’s shyly charming, and Kurt’s breath catches again and he has to look away. 

As they walk back upstairs Blaine follows half a step behind Kurt, glancing around curiously at the framed posters on the walls and the murals in the stairwell. Kurt wonders if he should offer to give him a tour of the place, but now that they’re side-by-side Blaine’s body is like a sounding board for his own nerves, absorbing and amplifying, and if that tension ever breaks it can’t be here. The stage is for fictional drama; real stories happen offscreen, privately in quiet corners, away from audiences and microphones. What is public must be sterilized and neat, and whatever is happening tonight Kurt is sure it won’t be that. Blaine’s elbow brushes Kurt’s side as they push through the front doors together and Kurt is almost surprised that his touch doesn’t leave a visible mark. 

He leads the way down the lamplit streets, and he knows the wind is cutting but he can’t feel the chill of it. When they stop at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn, he steals a glance at Blaine out of the corner of his eye and catches Blaine staring at him, too.

*

Kurt leads Blaine to his room, unlocks the door, makes them coffee. He hands one mug to Blaine and watches Blaine watch their fingertips brush together as he takes it from him and then sits on the edge of his bed, taking a sip to give his hands something to do. The tension is rising back out of his spine, bubbling through his veins, and his nervous state feels like a car that has struck a brick wall going eighty miles an hour: joules of energy with, suddenly, nowhere to go but out and away, movement become destruction. He can’t stand it anymore, his mind is moving away from the white singing fog and is starting to think, to wonder, to want, and he can’t let himself do that until he knows.

“Why did you come?”

“To see Rachel,” Blaine says, and just like that Kurt feels the first shreds of debris fall outward from the car wreck and tries vainly to pull himself together. He’s hurt enough already over Blaine, he is not going to let himself hurt again. Blaine is still speaking: “I didn’t know you were singing tonight too.”

“Mm,” Kurt hums. He is not hurting, he does not know enough what he wants to hurt because he thinks he might not be getting it. And here is a topic he can talk about. “She can still blow the walls off of buildings—I don't tell her that, though, so don't give my secret away.” He is absolutely going to kill Rachel Berry. He tries to grin and meets Blaine’s eyes and sees nothing unfamiliar there: humor, and warmth, and Blaine, and he aches. 

“Kurt, I didn’t realize what I was missing until tonight.” Kurt doesn’t know what Blaine is talking about. Kurt can’t know what Blaine is talking about, because if he starts to wonder, if he starts to hope, and then he’s wrong, the carwreck will kill him just that little bit more. 

“Concerts? Blaine, you’re in choir at your school, I know for a fact...” his mouth runs on without his permission and he says too much, what will Blaine think of Kurt knowing these things about his life?

“Not concerts,” Blaine cuts him off and Kurt has to set his mug down on his nightstand because he thinks he might drop it otherwise. The clink of stoneware on wood almost covers Blaine’s next word: “You.”

Kurt stares at Blaine, nerves stretched so tight that the next turn of the screw will surely snap them. He has nothing to say to that, he has nothing to feel to that: he wants it, he knows he wants it, with a desire too deep for feeling and expression, but Blaine has cost him so much already that Kurt isn’t sure it’s worth the chance anymore.

“We’ve been here before,” he says, surprising himself with the edge in his voice, remembers a cool hand over his and a clumsy kiss, remembers shouts and a slammed door. “And we know how it ends.” He’s not prepared for the way Blaine’s eyes flash, the way his face falls, or the vehemence in his voice.

“No!” It’s almost a shout, and Kurt startles, unprepared for the words that come tumbling out of Blaine’s mouth. “No, we don’t know how it - God, I was such an idiot. I don’t know how I ever let you go.”

“I’m still mad at you.” It’s one last test, one last attempt to hold on and shield himself from everything that could go wrong.

“I’m still mad at you, too.” There is something, now, in Blaine’s eyes, that is unfamiliar: a shame and a knowledge that Kurt doesn’t recognize in him. He looks older, and Kurt remembers again that the end was not all Blaine’s fault.

“I’m sorry.”

Something shifts in Blaine’s face, and that is familiar, he drifted off to sleep for weeks drunk on that look, stunned and disbelieving and under all of that happy, and suddenly Blaine’s lips are on his, Blaine’s hands are in his hair, and he doesn’t have to think anymore: this, he knows how to do.

Blaine kisses him sweetly and slow, tongue dancing teasingly at his and Kurt shudders and feels like he’s going to fall apart, tension melting to water and pooling at the corners of his eyes at the feel of this boy under his hands. He could sing for joy and happiness, he’d forgotten how to be happy, he’d forgotten what happy was until he had Blaine in his arms again. Sweet and slow is suddenly not enough; he opens his mouth and lets Blaine take from him, take everything back that had always been his. 

“I’m sorry, too,” Blaine stutters when he finally pulls away, eyes sweeping over Kurt’s face with the intimacy of possession, and Kurt knows that look, too, and for a moment can’t believe that anything like time and space had ever come between them. His mind, momentarily distracted from the kissing, still searches for words and explanations, and he’s speaking again before he knows it.

“I thought about calling you. So many times.” Would it have been different, if he had picked up his phone that night after his first Broadway play? Could he have spared them both months of doubt and heartache? Not that - he thinks bitterly and unashamedly of Matt - Blaine had had to struggle through the heartache for very long. 

“Why didn’t you?” Blaine shifts himself lower on the bed, his feet dangling off the edge - they’re both still wearing shoes - and rests his head in the crook of his arm. 

Kurt ducks his head, picks at a loose thread on his comforter. “I saw you with Matt.” It shouldn’t still sting, not after that kiss, but it does, and Blaine’s eyes glisten with something like embarrassment. 

“I thought I was over you.” That stings, too, and Kurt winces back from Blaine’s hand tentatively stroking his arm. It was true, of course it had been true, if Blaine had been dating other boys, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt to hear. “What happened?” he asks, his voice faint in his own ears, and the nerves under his skin that have become warm and rested threaten to tingle to life again. 

Blaine meets his eyes, and there’s a solemnity in their gold-flecked depths and that’s new, too. “I heard you singing.”

Kurt can feel the words welling up, and before he can convince himself not to he’s opening his mouth again, dropping his head and nuzzling into Blaine’s shoulder. “I love you.” It’s a risk, it’s such a risk, but really, it had already been taken as soon as he had looked up and seen Blaine in the doorway of the dressing room.

He feels the hum in Blaine’s chest before the words reach his lips, and Blaine’s mouth brushes against his own, his breath warm against Kurt’s skin. “I love you, too.”

Kurt could laugh with the relief of it if the relief had been small enough to express in a laugh; instead, he feels it bone-deep. He lets his head fall to the pillow and his body move closer to Blaine’s. They lie there for a long time, just breathing and watching each other. It’s been a long day and Kurt feels alive with the excitement of it, but he’s also exhausted, and Blaine smiles when he has to turn his head to muffle a yawn in the pillow. 

“Hey,” he raises a hand and brushes his fingertips against Kurt’s cheek. “I should - “ he blinks and his eyes change from comfortable to uncertain. “I should let you get some sleep.” He shifts, trying to get his hand under himself to sit up. Kurt feels the tension burning under his skin again, the wavering energy of the car wreck, and flinches. He touches Blaine’s hand, laying on the bed between them. “Stay here tonight?” he whispers, ducking his head and looking up at Blaine in time to see his face split in a smile. 

“Of course. I just, um. All my stuff - my clothes - I left my bag in Rachel’s room.”  
"I can lend you some of mine," Kurt says, and immediately wishes he hadn't, but what else is he supposed to do? the last time they'd spend the night together clothes hadn't been an issue at all, except for how fast they could get them off of each other, but that had been a long time ago. Rachel's room is no more than five minutes away, but it feels like if he leaves, he won't ever come back, that whatever magic is keeping him here will be gone. Kurt gets up from the bed and opens a drawer, pulls out a pair of pajamas, grabs an extra toothbrush from his stash in his closet.

"Here," he says, turning around and handing them to Blaine. "There's a, uh, bathroom down the hall. On the right."  
“Thanks,” Blaine takes them with a smile that’s tentative and maybe even a little disappointed and leaves the door open a crack behind himself. 

Kurt thinks about it as he undresses and puts on his own pajamas, drops his clothes in the hamper, and rearranges the product collection on his dresser. He doesn't know what he's doing, but it feels good, to know that Blaine is going to walk back through his door, and for now he just has to onto that feeling for the ride. 

When Blaine comes back Kurt's sitting on the bed waiting for him, and watches as Blaine sets his clothes on the dresser and lines his shoes up next to Kurt's on the mat by the door, a tiny touch of the domesticity they had once looked forward to taking for granted.

Blaine crawls up onto the bed and settles himself cross-legged across from him. Their knees knock together, warm pressure through flannel and silk, and Blaine doesn’t say anything, just looks at Kurt through those dark lashes a smile dancing at the corners of his lips. He reaches out and takes one of Kurt's hands, tangling their fingers together. 

It's that touch, more than anything else - the warm press of Blaine's callouses on his palm and the back of his hand, the comfortable way their fingers weave together - that convinces Kurt that he's real, that Blaine is here, that they're actually doing this - whatever "this" actually is. "I'm glad you're here tonight," he says, lifting his other hand and taking Blaine's, squeezing those fingers together too, 

"Me, too." Blaine tightens his hand and uses his grip to pull Kurt forward a little , just enough to kiss him gently on the mouth. It's so warm and so sweet and so familiar a touch and Kurt melts into it. He leans back on his pillows and Blaine goes with him, draping an am around his waist and pulling him to his chest. He brushes kisses over his cheeks, his forehead, his mouth, and Kurt can feel himself begin to drift with the haze of warmth and comfort.

*

Kurt wakes up the next morning feeling damp and overheated. Still half-asleep, he shoves the blankets back and rolls over, trying to find a cooler spot on the pillow. His limbs hit something warm and soft, and he blinks his eyes open, frowning in confusion.

He's met with the sight of messy dark hair, sleep-rosy cheeks, a tanned shoulder showing at the collar of one of Kurt's pajama shirts.

What had seemed like a dream last night now seems too real and too there this morning. It had been so sudden, looking up and seeing him in that doorway, and it's like a dream come true to have Blaine back in his atmosphere again but Kurt hasn't had time to adjust to his orbit and he feels disoriented with it. He shifts so that he's as far away from Blaine as he can get on the narrow bed, but that isn't far.

Blaine had been such a force in his life for so long, such a powerful memory and regret and bitterness for the last year and a half that he'd become larger than life in Kurt's mind, and it seems strange now that all of Blaine can be contained in these restless limbs curled up on his bed. Kurt can't help but feel that there's more to Blaine somewhere where Kurt can't see and can't know. He doesn't know what they're doing, and the minutes until Blaine might wake up so he can ask him about it seem impossibly long.

As it turns out, though, he doesn't have long to wait. Forgotten in his pocket, Kurt's phone chirps an alarm and as he scrambles out of bed to silence it Blaine stirs and blinks his eyes open blearily.

"Sorry - sorry - " Kurt unearths the phone and jabs at the screen until it falls silent. The sudden reminder of the outside world jars him and makes it impossible for him to ask what he wants.

"I was going to go out to brunch with some of the guys from last night,” he babbles instead. “Um, if you're still tired, you can stay here. I can bring you back some food, or - " 

Blaine shakes a hand through his curls and takes a moment to focus on Kurt before he reaches an arm out. "Come here," he says sleepily, and Kurt hesitates before he steps back within reach. "I'd love to go out to brunch with you and meet your friends." He opens his mouth again but seems to reconsider what he was going to say. "That is, if you want me to."

Kurt nods, and Blaine smiles. "Alright then."

*

They're walking back from the diner when Kurt sees Blaine check his phone for the time, and a coolness starts to seep into his stomach. "When do you have to go back?" he asks quietly.

"This afternoon. My bus leaves at three," Blaine looks at him as he drops the phone back in his pocket. "I'm sorry, Kurt. I didn't know..."

"Don't apologize," Kurt says crisply. He checks the time on his own phone and sighs. He thought they'd have at least a little more time together today, but they haven’t been back together, if together is what it can be called, long enough to have any demands on Blaine’s time. "We'd better go get your stuff from Rachel's room. Do you want me to go with you to the station?"

Blaine nods. "Yes, please. If you don't have anywhere you need to be..."

"No," Kurt shakes his head. "It's fine. Really."

*

As they're standing on the platform waiting for the bus to pull in Kurt wraps his arms around himself and stands next to Blaine and remembers what he’d managed to forget since their last summer together, the creeping anticipation of separation, the encroaching loneliness that had tainted what time they had had left together. He weighs the warmth of Blaine asleep beside him, his familiar presence, his shoes by Kurt’s door, against the cold dread, the sharp New York wind, the sting of exhaust fumes in his throat here on the platform. Last night had been glorious, but now Blaine’s slipping away again and Kurt doesn't know how to hold on.

The bus pulls in and the PA system blares an announcement and Blaine picks his bag up and slings it over his shoulders and turns to face Kurt.

"Kurt - " he begins, and Kurt doesn't have anything, he doesn't have any words for this or what happens now.  
Blaine takes breath and starts again. "I don't know - what your schedule is, or anything, and if you're really busy, I understand entirely, but - " he swallows and Kurt can't remember ever seeing him this nervous. "If you want to, I'd really like it if you came to visit me. In Boston. I could - show you around, we could - " but Kurt cuts him off.

"I'd love to." Blaine's expression is too earnest to be called happy, but as the last call blares for the bus he pulls Kurt in close and kisses him hard. Kurt's hand comes up to hold on to his arm but before it gets there Blaine's pulled away and is climbing the steps of the bus. He turns to wave, and Kurt’s fingers feel numb as he waves back.

Kurt makes himself stand and watch as Blaine disappears behind the tinted glass of the bus windows. As the bus finally pulls away, leaving him standing on the platform, he lets himself do what he had tried so hard never to do before they went to college, what he had done his best to ignore until it had broken them apart: He stands on the dirty concrete platform with the wind nipping his ears and feels everything: the hurt, the hope, the aloneness that feels like a small form of grief. He tries to tell himself that it will never be worse than this, that if he can handle this moment he can handle being with Blaine but away from him for another three years.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and Kurt's fingers are white with cold as he checks the message.

From Blaine: I love you.

His fingers slip a little on the keys as he replies: I love you too.

Of course he does. He knows he loves Blaine the same way he knows his own name, a part of him he could never get rid of. And he knows that this isn't the worst it will feel, that it will get harder every time they say goodbye.

What he doesn't know is whether it's worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: Yay for Imogene Heap and "Just For Now." Also, for those few of you who may have spotted it, credit for the tie-snicking scheme goes to Abbey Bartlet, creation of my first TV love, Aaron Sorkin.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's an unseasonably mild day when Blaine waits at the bus stop, pacing back and forth while the wind catches the open flaps of his coat.

It's an unseasonably mild day when Blaine waits at the bus stop, pacing back and forth while the wind catches the open flaps of his coat. Or at least he feels like he should be pacing; contained nervous energy makes it hard for him to sit still but he forces himself to, knees crossed on a bench outside the station, fingers busy unrolling the lip of an empty paper coffee cup. Kurt had texted an hour ago when the bus had made its penultimate stop, and Blaine's been sitting here since then. Waiting.

It's been three weeks since he was in New York, but it had only been the previous weekend that Kurt had finally mentioned visiting over a late Skype call. Blaine hadn't brought it up before, hadn't wanted to press, but in between pointed remarks about the parts of Blaine's decorating scheme visible in the frame Kurt had toyed with something next to his keyboard and said "So. About Boston..."

Blaine had spent the rest of the week getting all of his work out of the way and cleaning his apartment and making lists of things they could do around the city. It had been a strange few weeks, readjusting his life to the sudden return of Kurt, but they had been Blaine's favorite since he had first moved here last year. They've talked, often; not every day, but most days, a phone call in between classes or longer Skype conversations at night. It's not that dissimilar from their first few weeks of getting to know each other in high school, the texts and the calls and the emails, living in different towns but becoming best friends so quickly.

Blaine's heart leaps painfully every time a bus pulls in, but they're all from Washington or Philadelphia or somewhere else that's not New York. He's just getting ready to text Kurt again to see if they're stuck in traffic when he sees it, a huge, ugly, lumbering Greyhound that pulls lazily into platform 4B. Blaine stands quickly, tosses the empty cup and shoves his hands in his pockets. It seems to take forever for the bus to settle into park, for the doors to open and the first passengers to stumble out.

The entire population of New York, it seems, gets out of the bus before Kurt doesn’t. Normally, Blaine loves watching people at airports and train stations, loves watching the homecomings, the warm hugs and excited children, the people awaiting the return of a parent or a friend or a lover. Today, though, he's blind to the happy reunions around him, his eyes peeled anxiously for one person in particular. It had been difficult, leaving Kurt on the platform in New York, but this - the nerves and the bubbling excitement and the anticipation - this is wonderful.

Finally, Blaine catches sight of him. Kurt is one of the last passengers off, emerging from a cramped and crowded bus looking pressed and polished in a blue coat and white scarf. Blaine's breath catches in his throat as he watches Kurt step down, his eyes scanning the small crowd. Pictures and Skype don't do him justice, and Kurt is beautiful. Unable to contain himself any longer, Blaine bounces on his toes and waves an arm to get his attention.

 

Kurt sees him, finally, and his face lights up, transforming from that of a solemn model to an excited teenager in an instant.

Blaine isn't sure how he cuts through the crowd but suddenly he's standing right in front of Kurt with absolutely no idea of what to say. He just stands there, unable to believe that it's really Kurt, standing here, right here, two feet in front of him. Kurt shifts his grip on his bag and smiles, again, that real, honest, open smile that Blaine is never going to get tired of seeing.

"Hi," he breathes, in a clear voice that sounds so good undistorted by static and phone lines, and then his arms are around Blaine's neck and Blaine is being thoroughly kissed by a beautiful boy in the low late-fall sun. When Kurt finally pulls back there's a flush high on his cheeks and he looks a little dazed, as though he'd surprised even himself.

"Hi yourself," Blaine smiles at him, pulling back a little but staying within the circle of Kurt's arms. "Welcome to Boston."

*

Blaine leads them away down the street and Kurt lets him take his bag and then his hand as they walk. "How was the trip?" he asks, for something to say, and Kurt sniffs.

"Crowded. Too long." He gives Blaine a shy smile. "The end of it was very nice though."

Blaine chuckles and gives his fingers a squeeze. "Glad to hear it. What do you want to do first? I could show you the school, or we could go get a cup of coffee, or we could go back to my place..."

"Could we go for coffee?" Kurt looks a little nervous, a little glad of the option that involves not much walking after the long bus ride and not going to Blaine's apartment right away. Blaine's a little stung - wasn't that the point of this trip, to be together what they couldn't be when they were in different cities? But then he catches himself staring at the curve of pale skin where Kurt's neck disappears into his scarf and remembers the warm solidity of Kurt's body against him in his bed in New York three weeks ago, thinks about what he'd do if he was back in Kurt's bed again. Maybe it's not such a bad idea to spend a little time getting used to being around each other again before they dive back into...well. Being intimate.

“Yeah. Sure.”

*

When it’s their turn in line Blaine turns to Kurt to ask him what he wants, and Kurt just smiles and tips his chin down, flicks his eyes up and raises an eyebrow, a challenge, and it looks coy but Blaine knows it means Kurt is looking for reassurance.

This one is easy, though, and Blaine winks at him and orders for himself and a nonfat mocha for Kurt, and is rewarded by Kurt’s fingers creeping into his as they wait.

*

“How was your week?” Blaine asks as he threads his way through the tables towards one by the window overlooking the street. Kurt pauses in the act of snagging a napkin as he passes the dispenser and looks over at Blaine.

“I just talked to you yesterday. And two days before that,” curious, he tilts his head. “What else do you want to know?” He sits down across from Blaine, who has set down Kurt’s bag and is now popping the lid off his cup to add frankly gratuitous amounts of sugar. He reaches for a stir stick and Kurt swears the tips of his ears are red.

“I...it’s different, when you’re here. I like hearing your voice. In person,” he hastens to clarify, when Kurt opens his mouth again.

“Oh.” Kurt considers that while he brushes a stray crumb off the table. “I guess I can live with that.” He nudges Blaine’s knee under the table with his own, and smiles when Blaine’s ears go even redder. Blaine may be as flirty and charming and cocky as ever, but he’s nervous, too, and that makes Kurt feel more grounded; at least he’s not the only one who is confused. So he tries to relax into the rapport that’s always been easy, tells Blaine again the same stories he’d told him the previous week, and Blaine retells his own stories, and they are different, they’re better, when the only thing transmitting their words is a few feet of air and not cables or cell towers.

By the time they’re done with their coffee and the silence between their sentences has stretched almost to awkward one time too many, night has fallen and the street outside is dark, illuminated through the plate-glass windows by lit storefronts and the dazzling flashes of headlights. It’s gotten colder, too; a front must have swept in while the sun was setting and in the span of a few hours the temperature has dropped from unseasonably warm to almost unseasonably cold. Kurt is shivering by the time Blaine is holding his apartment door open in front of him.

“Sorry I didn’t get to show you the campus,” Blaine says, setting down Kurt’s bag by the door. “But baby, it’s bad out there.”

It takes Kurt a second to get it, but when he does he groans to hide a laugh. “Maybe tomorrow. I was not prepared for this kind of weather today.”

Blaine takes Kurt’s coat and hangs it up next to his own. “You look great, though.” He closes the closet door and runs his gaze over Kurt, lingering for a moment at his neck. “Hey,” he steps closer, raising a hand to Kurt’s scarf “Is this- ?”

“Yeah.” Kurt can feel the redness at the tips of his ears and isn’t sure why he’s blushing. When he’d picked the scarf that morning it had seemed just a gesture, a nice reminder of what had come before, but Blaine is looking at him as though it means something and Kurt wonders belatedly whether it really does. It had been Blaine’s gift to him for their first (their only) Christmas together, and one of the only things Kurt had kept around to remind him of his ex. He had told himself at the time that it was too nice not to use, no matter what associations it held. But now, as Blaine’s eyes flick from the scarf to his face and then to his mouth, Kurt remembers Blaine’s hands on his throat as he had unwound the fabric, after school in one of their cars or on weekends in an empty house, Blaine’s fingers deft as they rewound it around him when they had run out the clock and were racing curfew against trailing fingers and one-last kisses. A pretty piece of cloth that had come to mean heat, not just staying warm.

Blaine takes a half-step closer and Kurt almost tilts his head to meet him halfway, but memories are climbing quick and hot and there’s something in Blaine’s eyes that tells him that what might start as a kiss isn’t going to just end with one right now, and it’s too much too fast and he breaks his gaze away. He feels the moment stutter and falter but it leaves behind a faint hum, almost a pull between them.

“Um,” Kurt can see Blaine’s throat bob as he swallows. “What would you like to do? I’d thought we’d go out for dinner but I don’t think we want to venture back outside. Our kitchen is pretty good, though, and Molly went shopping before she went over to Jaime’s for the weekend. She seems to think I can’t feel myself if she leaves me to my own devices.”

“Left to your own devices you can’t feed yourself. Remember the macaroni incident?”

Blaine starts walking down the short hallway. “That was a long time ago! I’ve gotten better. Besides,” he pushes open a door that reveals a tiny but efficient-looking kitchen. “I thought we agreed to never speak of that again.”

The wind knocks a branch against the siding outside and sets a loose window rattling; Blaine slams it tight as he walks past it with a practiced twist of an elbow. He pulls a cookbook off the counter, one of a decent selection propped up by the microwave, and from the title alone Kurt is prepared to pronounce Blaine’s roommate a kindred spirit. He stands a little awkwardly in the doorway as Blaine flips through the pages, clearly looking for something in particular.

“Ahah!” he finally exclaims, spinning the book around on its corner, and Kurt steps closer to see. “I know we’ve got all the stuff for this, and it won’t take too long if you’re hungry. Oh,” he seems to catch himself. “Are you really hungry? Or thirsty or anything? We’ve got chips and some granola and whatever if you don’t want to wait for a meal, or -” he nearly stumbles over himself in belated solicitousness, and Kurt smiles and toys with the corner of a page. “I’m fine, thank you.”

The kitchen really is tiny, without enough room for two people to work together comfortably, so Blaine overrides Kurt’s offers to help and shoos him out to “sit down and relax!”

Kurt ends up wandering around the apartment instead. It’s a rowhouse, deep but narrow, and the bay window in the living room takes up almost the entirety of the front wall. Snow is spitting down outside, white flakes gleaming in the light of streetlamps. It’s dark inside, though, and Kurt flicks on a lamp next to a squashy-looking armchair. 

Looking around the room, Kurt doesn’t recognize most of the furnishings or decorations. There’s a map on the wall over an endtable that he knows from Blaine’s room in Ohio, and the lamp he just turned on previously resided in the Andersons’ living room. He can tell, though, which of the posters on the wall are Blaine’s, even if he doesn’t know all the groups on them - apparently Kurt wasn’t the only one to experiment, though Blaine appears to have done so much more productively. The colors are brighter, the pictures are edgier, and it’s a continuation of the transformation Blaine had started to undergo the last year of high school, edging away from gelled hair and collared shirts and absolute confidence in his place in the world.

There’s a built-in bookcase on the wall across from the staircase, and it’s mostly cluttered with textbooks and framed snapshots but on a shelf in the corner Kurt finds an iPod dock with Blaine’s old iPod plugged in.

“Can I put some music on?” he calls in the direction of the kitchen.

“Sure!” Blaine calls back, and Kurt scrolls through artists and playlists until he finds what he’s looking for.

Looking up from underneath  
Fractured moonlight on the sea  
Reflections still look the same to me  
As before I went under

He takes an experimental pirouette, just for the hell of it, and decides that Blaine’s living room is perfect for dancing.

The wind whistles again, louder this time, and there’s a moment, then, in the dimly lit room, nearly alone in a strange apartment in a city he’s never been in before with a boy he’s not sure what’s happening with. Kurt is tired and disoriented and this is the part where he should feel suddenly and ragingly homesick, not for Ohio but for familiar and lonely New York.

But there’s a clatter from the kitchen where Blaine is making dinner for the two of them, and Kurt can imagine him scrutinizing the cookbook with his tongue between his teeth and trying to juggle too many pans on the stove. His imagination runs ahead of him before he can reign it back in, and for a moment Kurt can see it: snow dusting on the windowsill, wonderful smells drifting out of the kitchen and a familiar presence in the next room; not just a weekend together, but them, together; a life, together.

I’m not giving up, I’m just giving in.

“Hey, Florence!” Blaine rounds the corner, wiping damp hands off on his jeans, apparently unaware of the dishtowel dangling from his back pocket. “I haven’t listened to her in years.”

Kurt turns from his place at the stereo and smirks. “I’ll never forgive Mr. Schuester for not letting us do “No Light” for our duet at regionals.”

“Can you blame him? I mean, you would have rocked it, but I definitely lack the, uh, soulful edge to really make it work.”

“Hmm, you might have a point.” Kurt pretends to ponder that, and Blaine gives a mock-affronted gasp.

“Hey! Thanks for the support.”

"I did support you! I saved you from having to do that monstrosity with Rachel, didn't I?"

"Ugh, yes. What was it that she wanted to do?"

"Oh god, I can't remember, but it was awful."

"On a brighter note, though," Blaine grins and offers his arm to Kurt. "I am pleased to announce that dinner-" he pauses for a dramatic breath and god, it's so cheesy, and so Blaine that Kurt has to laugh "is served." He gestures into the kitchen with his free hand. "Shall we?"  
Kurt smiles and takes his arm. "I think we shall."

*

Dinner is a success, or at least Blaine thinks it is. He'd honestly meant to show Kurt around the campus before bringing him back to his apartment, but now that they're here he can't regret the weather turning sour. As Kurt sits across the tiny dining room table from him and chatters in between bites of pasta Blaine marvels all over again at having him here, really here. It’s almost too good to be true.

When they're done eating Kurt insists on washing up, so Blaine slides up onto a bare patch of counter to keep him company.

"Blaine!" Kurt's aghast, and Blaine just laughs as Kurt swats the dishtowel against his knees.

"What?"

"Were you raised in a barn?"

"Hey now. There's nowhere else to sit! I have tons of polish."

Kurt rolls his eyes. "Sure you do."

"I do!"

"Mhmm. At least help dry." Kurt grins as he drops the towel on Blaine's lap and starts the water running.  
As Kurt washes and Blaine dries they trade banter, about what, Blaine doesn't even know. He's just lost in the sound of Kurt's voice and the pale skin of his wrists where he's rolled up his sleeves and the sparkle in his eye as he argues some point. Blaine had forgotten how Kurt's presence can fill a room even when he's performing the most mundane of chores, and he kind of wants that presence here, with him, all the time. If he only gets Kurt for the weekend this time, he's going to make the most of the time he has.

But as Kurt drains the sink and Blaine stands on tiptoe to slide the last plate into the cupboard the conversation skips a beat and then loses its flow. Kurt turns in the small space and the fringe of his scarf brushes Blaine's arm, raising goosebumps on his skin. Kurt's hands are still wet, and his skin gleams in the light from the overhead fixture. Blaine swallows and before he fully realizes what he's doing he's taken one of Kurt's hands in both of his, cradling it with one and chasing droplets with the other, tracing rivulets with his fingertips across Kurt's knuckles and up his wrists where the veins stand out, delicate willow-china blue against his pale arm.

"Blaine?" Kurt's voice is soft, and when Blaine looks up there's a question in his eyes, and a hint of confusion.

"Sorry!" He flushes and drops Kurt's hand, rubs damp fingers against his jeans to dry them.

For a second Blaine thinks Kurt looks even more confused, but then the flicker is gone and Kurt's face is calm, and Blaine is glad one of them is in control because he seems to have lost all filter or poise.

"Sorry! Sorry. I mean." He runs a hand through his hair, looks around the kitchen for something else to do or distract himself from Kurt being right there, his skin and his hands and his expressive face. There's nothing; the place is spotless, and Blaine is quietly flailing in his own mind. They used to have a routine, dinner and then a movie on the couch or homework together curled up in one of their bedrooms. 

It had been so easy during dinner but now all of the sudden what they had remembered of "normal" is gone and Blaine feels gawky, awkward in his own skin, entranced by the boy too close in front of him. He knows what he wants but doesn't know how to ask, has missed Kurt too much to know how to navigate the issue smoothly. 

It had been easy, in Kurt's dorm room, where his bed was a bed and a couch and a desk and a table all at once, but here there's a couch for sitting and a table for working and Blaine's bed is just a bed and even asking Kurt to go upstairs with him is such a suggestive statement of intent.

"I don't know what you're, um, in the mood for, but I've got some movies or we could take a walk if it stopped snowing maybe or-"

"Could I have a tour of the house?" Kurt cuts off Blaine's rambling, his shoulders bobbing a little as he leans a hip against the counter.

"Oh. Sure. I mean, you've seen most of it, but- oh. " Kurt, god bless Kurt and his poise and his control and his always knowing what to do. Blaine meets Kurt's eyes and takes his hand, carefully, dry this time but still cool under his fingers, and leads him out into the hall. He thinks about giving Kurt a tour, an actual tour, showing him the space under the stairs that Molly had converted into the smallest office he’s ever seen, about telling him the story about the records that are now matted and framed and hanging over the couch. But when they reach the foot of the stairs Kurt’s head turns to look up the carpeted steps and the hand that Blaine isn’t holding drapes across the railing, like it’s closing an electrical circuit. Kurt’s fingers are warmer, now, tightening around Blaine’s, and Blaine wonders how long they’d been cold for. 

The iPod had finished playing through the album a long time ago, and it’s silent now except for the hush of their feet on the carpet and the snap of the wind through the trees outside as Blaine takes the first step. The old wood of the stairs creaks as he walks and he has to fight the instinct to flinch; there are no parents here to disturb or be disapproving. It hits him then, how adult they’re being, or trying to be; two nineteen-year-olds alone in a house together, racing ahead two years to pick up where they’d left off at seventeen. The quiet feels appropriate, solemn, and Blaine turns his palm against Kurt’s to interlace their fingers together. For the first time since they’d stepped on the stairs Kurt turns to look at him, half a step below him, and his hand is strong and steady in Blaine’s grasp. 

At the top they pause together, and Blaine slides his fingers over Kurt’s other hand, still resting on the banister, curling them around his palm and stroking his thumb over the back of his hand until Kurt uncurls his fingers and rests them on Blaine’s wrist. Blaine stares intently and imagines he can see both of their pulses dancing under their skin, and when he looks up again Kurt is watching him calmly, eyes dark in the shadowed hallway. It feels like this is the time for a question but Kurt’s eyes are answering anything Blaine can think to ask so he just squeezes Kurt’s hands again and begins to walk backwards, slowly, until he feels his door against his back. He works a shoulder and pushes it open and steps through, watching Kurt’s face as his eyes dart around the room, taking it in. He wonders what he’s seeing, what his eyes are lingering on.

...on Blaine, it turns out, when he runs out of room and finally bumps into his desk. Kurt takes another half a step before he finally stops, too, well within Blaine’s dance space, and lets his gaze linger for a long moment on Blaine’s face, tracing his eyes before his gaze drops to his mouth, his throat, his shoulders and down across his chest until they fall, darkly blue, on their intertwined hands. He stretches his fingers and for a moment Blaine is afraid he’s going to drop his hands, but Kurt just spreads his fingers and drags them across the backs of Blaine’s, stroking across the sides and brushing smooth fingertips across his palms, drifting thumbs over his wrists. He flicks his eyes up to Blaine’s briefly and then drops them again before he slips his hands loose around each of Blaine’s forearms, skin barely ghosting over skin but Blaine can feel the warmth of him now as he skims his hands upward, achingly slowly, raising the hair on Blaine’s arms. 

When Kurt’s hands reach his shoulders they tighten for a moment and he takes another half-step forward before he loosens one and grazes it across Blaine’s collarbone. Kurt’s close enough now that Blaine can see the flecks of green in his eyes, and he’s distracted trying to decide what the color reminds him of until goosebumps break out over his neck as Kurt smooths his fingers over his skin and up into his hair, tangling in the curls there and anchoring them together. 

“Blaine,” he whispers, and then Kurt’s fingers are tightening against his scalp and Kurt is closing the last of the distance between them.

The first brush of his mouth against Blaine's is cool, as his hands had been. It's not the first time they've kissed, it's not the first time they've kissed today, but Kurt's lips are dry and there's a drag that Blaine thinks should be charging sparks between them. His empty hands settle on Kurt's side, and he feels fabric shift under his palms, over warm skin as Kurt presses forward until their bodies are nearly flush against each other.

Kurt changes the angle, parts his lips slightly, and Blaine can feel the damp underside of them catch on his own. Kurt's fingers flex and tense on Blaine's arm, and his other hand combs down through his hair and comes to rest on his jaw, cradling it as he kisses Blaine careful and slow. Blaine can feel his breath against his cheek, and Kurt moves again, just a little, his mouth opening more and his tongue teasing against Blaine's lips, and that's it. Kurt's mouth is right right there and Blaine doesn't want to wait any longer.

His palms drop down Kurt's waist and around his sides, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him close, closer, opening his mouth for Kurt to sweep inside. Their tongues roll together and solemn and slow is not enough anymore so Blaine nudges against Kurt, meaning to push him toward the bed, but to his surprise Kurt pushes back, stronger, and pins him against the desk with an arm around his waist, fingertips tight on his shoulder, a thigh shoved against Blaine's leg. There's nothing careful about the way he's kissing Blaine now, and the weight of him, pressed against Blaine shoulder to knee, sends heat pooling low in Blaine's core. 

“Kurt.” it comes out more desperate than he meant it to, but from the look on Kurt’s face when he pulls back that’s not a bad thing. 

Despite the turning weather Kurt’s just wearing a thin shirt whose fabric is softly silky under Blaine’s fingers and the scarf still wound around his neck. Blaine remembers picking out that scarf; he had agonized for hours over color and texture and style and had been terrified of getting it wrong. But Kurt, his Kurt who planned his outfits weeks in advance and owned more accessories, it seemed, than there were days in the year had worn it every day for a week straight. Blaine winds his fingers in it now, tugging the folds loose from Kurt’s throat to drop his lips there, skimming his lips over the exposed skin and up to the spot behind Kurt’s ear that, he is thrilled to discover, still makes him shiver in his arms. He sucks gently, careful not to leave a mark, and fumbles with less grace than he’d like to unwind the scarf from Kurt completely. 

It slips from his fingers and slithers to the ground at their feet, and Blaine has the momentary thought that it’s a tripping hazard before he forgets about it completely. The silky material of Kurt’s shirt is tucked neatly into his jeans, and Blaine’s fingers spend a few moments exploring his waistband before Kurt, apparently, gets fed up with the teasing kisses to his throat and grabs Blaine’s head, kissing him hard while Blaine tugs his shirt loose and his fingers dive underneath. 

They’re met only with more fabric, and Blaine huffs a breath that might be a curse if Kurt didn’t have his mouth otherwise occupied, and wrenches the undershirt loose too. Kurt and his fucking layers.

Kurt, at least, seems to be in agreement with Blaine on that point. He lets Blaine unbutton him, his chest rising and falling under Blaine’s hands as Blaine peels the two sides of the shirt apart and off his shoulders. Blaine’s shirt doesn’t last much longer, and suddenly he’s standing in Kurt’s arms, still pressed against the desk, Kurt’s hands curled on his bare chest and his eyes wide with intent.

Suddenly those hands are clutched tight around Blaine’s upper arms and Kurt is stepping backwards, steering him away from the desk. Blaine does nearly trip on the discarded scarf but Kurt steadies him and guides him toward the bed. When Blaine feels the edge of the mattress against the back of his knees Kurt puts his weight on Blaine's shoulders and pushes him down, getting one knee up on the bed by his hip before his forward motion stops abruptly. He scrambles back, blinking as though he's startled himself.

"I - I'm sorry - " He's stuttering, his chest rising and falling rapidly over unsteady breaths.

"Why?" Blaine is confused; all he knows is that Kurt was almost on top of him and now he's not anymore.

"We didn't talk about - about this - " Kurt's fingers flex in empty space. Something begins to creep into Blaine's consciousness besides wanting Kurt back on him right now, but subtlety has never been his strong point and he goes straight for honesty. 

"God, Kurt, it’s really okay." At this angle he can't reach Kurt's hands so he raises his leg and hooks a knee around Kurt's hip, urging him down, and Kurt seems to forget whatever he was going to say next and falls onto his side on the bed next to him. Blaine winds an arm around him and kisses him, and Kurt only hesitates for a moment before his eyes slide closed and kisses back.

Blaine rolls them and gets up on a knee over Kurt, his elbows resting heavy on the mattress by Kurt’s ears and his forearms arcing two sides of a triangle above his head. Kurt’s breathing is heavy and his eyes are dark, and his hands stroke up Blaine’s thighs and over his ass, pulling down with broad palms and strong fingers and Blaine loses his balance and falls, gasping at the sudden pressure as Kurt lets out a choked groan beneath him and squeezes his eyes shut, arcing his neck back and pressing his fingers tighter.

Blaine pushes a knee between Kurt’s legs and straddles his thigh. His arms are still propped around Kurt’s head, and he shoves his hands into his hair and seals their mouths together. Kurt lets out a sound that would have been a whimper if Blaine hadn’t been breathing in the air in his lungs and scratches across his back; Blaine nips Kurt’s lip and rocks his hips down, hard. He tries to set a rhythm but he’s too close and he only thrusts against Kurt’s hip a few more times before he’s coming, bursts of electricity running from his spine to his fingertips and his breath shuddering out of him in gasps. He feels Kurt’s hands on him, distantly.

*

Kurt pets the hair at the nape of Blaine’s neck as he collapses on top of him. God, he’d forgotten what it felt like, to do that to someone, to do that to Blaine. It feels amazing, and arousal mixes in his blood with a feeling of power, and it frightens him.

When Kurt had pushed - shoved, essentially - Blaine down onto the bed, it had felt like the right thing to do the moment his hands had found Blaine's shoulders, but then Blaine had been flat on his back and arousal had jolted in Kurt stronger than he can remember in a long time, and an urge to be something - stronger, fiercer, rougher - that he's never been before had come over him and scared him out of his wits. Kurt didn't do things like that. 

He'd backed off, and babbled, and without Blaine's hands on him it had been easier, in the way that climbing K2 is probably easier than climbing Everest, to remember that they haven't done this in over a year, that they haven't been together in over a year, and somehow they'd gone from walking up the stairs hand-in-hand to mauling each other on Blaine's bed, and that was somewhat terrifying.  
Blaine hadn't seemed to mind, if the way he'd tangled his limbs with Kurt's and claimed his mouth had been any indication, but the unease was still there and had only being driven out of Kurt's mind by the weight on Blaine on top of him, the feel of his lips and the pressure of his hips and now the by the gasping breaths against his skin as Blaine comes down from his orgasm.

After a few moments Blaine lifts his head from the crook of Kurt's neck and blinks down at him, looking dazed and blissful. He shifts his weight a little and Kurt gasps and can't keep his hips from hitching up and grinding a little against Blaine, whose eyes shift from dazed to aware and then he's moving, shuffling down the bed.

He pushes Kurt's shirt up as he goes, thin white cotton bunching together as he kisses the middle of Kurt's chest and then slides lower, trailing lips and tongue and the faintest scratch of stubble across his torso and down to his stomach. At his waist he pauses and lifts his eyes to Kurt's face and gazes at him up the length of his body, and very deliberately places a kiss on the skin above the waistband of his jeans.

And Kurt knows what he wants, or at least what he wants to do, but it's too much. They'd slept in the same bed two weeks ago but this is their first night together, and Kurt's still not sure where this is going, not physically, but emotionally; he has no idea what Blaine's intentions are, whether he'll still want what Kurt's become after a year in New York, or whether even, if they do decide they want each other, whatever tore them apart the first time will come back to haunt them and tear them apart again. Only this time it will be worse, because Kurt had been finally, finally getting over Blaine when he had shown up so wonderfully and unexpectedly and he doesn't know if he can get over him again, if he lets himself get in too deep.

"Kurt?" Blaine's voice is soft, confused, and his thumb strokes gently across Kurt's hip, and Kurt wants it but he can't, Blaine's mouth on him like that will get him in way too deep.

"No. Not yet," he hastily adds, when Blaine nearly falls over himself trying to get off him. "Please." He leans up and pulls Blaine back, snugging their hips together and rocking gently. "Just - like this." 

Blaine nods, wide-eyed restraint, and when he slowly drags his hand over Kurt, watching his face tenderly and so carefully, Kurt gasps and nods and Blaine presses down, strokes and rubs and circles and then Kurt’s gone, shaking and thrusting arrhythmically against Blaine’s hand. 

Blaine catches his thrown-back head, cradling his neck as Kurt tries to catch his breath, and kisses him gently, fluttering presses of lips against his cheeks and mouth and forehead. When Kurt can finally blink and swallow and remember his own name he turns his head to see Blaine tucked close on his side next to him, eyelids heavy with approaching sleep and a contented smile tugging his mouth. “You okay?” he asks.

“Mhmmm.” Kurt nods and rolls over onto his side, draping a tentative arm around Blaine and pulling himself close. Blaine’s smile breaks wider before he has to stifle a yawn in Kurt’s shoulder, and he scootches closer and buries his head in Kurt’s chest. Kurt strokes his fingers across Blaine’s back until he starts to twitch as he falls asleep, and then pulls the comforter up around both of them. 

The wind is whining at Blaine’s window, and it take a long time for Kurt to finally sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a month after they meet again, Kurt and Blaine struggle to put the pieces of their relationship back together again.
> 
> Kurt has come to terms with New York not being everything he had dreamed it would be, and it had taken months but he’d finally carved out his own place here, begun building his own life: not exactly what he’d once thought it would be; better in some ways, worse in others. And Kurt knows, rationally, that he is tired and cranky and not thinking clearly but the thought that rebuilding what he’d lost with Blaine will take as long or be as hard is exhausting.

“Well why can’t - no, I know - why can’t Tamara do it? She should be able to, I spent all last weekend - okay, Lydia, calm down, please - I spent all last weekend walking her through it specifically so this would not happen - okay, fine, fine, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Kurt punches the “end call” button and resists the urge to throw his phone across the room. He settles instead for pounding his head into his arm, folded on the desk in front of him, before he stands up, grabs his coat, and hits number two on his speed dial.

Blaine picks up on the second ring. “Hey, Kurt!”

Kurt tries to lace up his shoes one-handed. “Hey. Listen, I’m really sorry, but something just came up at the theater and I don’t know if - shit.” He slips and bangs his shin on the corner of his desk. “I have to run down there and I don’t know if I can get to the station on time to meet you.”

“Oh.”

“I’m really sorry, it’s just, this weekend, it’s so crazy - “

“It’s okay.”

Kurt gets his shoes on properly and slams the door behind him as he leaves. “I can get Rachel to go meet you if you want, so you’re not there by yourself. I really shouldn’t be long - damn it, this was not supposed to happen.”

“Kurt!” Blaine’s voice is staticky and soft over the line. “Really, it’s okay. I’ll wait for you.” The smile in his voice is evident, and Kurt breathes a sigh and tries to relax, but it’s hard.

“Okay. I’ll be there soon, I promise. Love you.”

“I love you too. Can’t wait to see you!”

“You too.”

It is not, of course, soon, before Kurt is finally able to sidestep the woefully unqualified girls at the theatre and make his escape, and when he finally steps out into the early December New York he is frustrated and pissed off and impatient. He’s been looking forward to Blaine coming for the last two weeks, since Blaine dropped him off at the bus stop in Boston at the end of the weekend, but this is nothing like he had planned for it to be. The prospect of seeing Blaine at the station, of throwing his arms around his neck and kissing him shamelessly in public does nothing to relax him; all he can think about is the mess of sketches on his desk in his room, the laundry he’d left in the dryer, the fact that he very seriously needs a shower but really does not have time for one right now, and through it all the fear, unrealistic as it may be, that Blaine will simply not have waited for him, will have decided that Kurt is not worth the effort and boarded the next bus back to Boston, or simply vanished into the city, never to be heard from again.

He bangs the door from the backstage open to the lobby, and then stops, staring, at the glass entrance doors.

“You’ve got to stop doing this,” he says. His voice is quiet but the lobby is nearly empty and his voice echoes against the glass doors and tiled floor. Blaine’s head snaps up from where he’d been deep in conversation with a skeptical-looking techie, and a bright smile blooms across his face. “Hi!”

He makes it three steps across the lobby towards Kurt before he turns back to the techie. “Oh, hey, thanks for your help!” The techie just shrugs. “Whatever, man,” and slinks back into the warren of the backstage.

“What are you doing here?”

Blaine’s smile slips a little. “Rachel gave me the directions here. I thought I’d surprise you.”

Kurt tries to smile, but all he can feel is his plans falling apart. Blaine, being Blaine, notices immediately.

“Hey, hey. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Kurt forces his smile brighter and sees Blaine relax, just a little. “Just tired. I’m sorry I made you wait.”

“It’s really fine. I’m just glad I’m here now.” He holds his arms out, and Kurt lets himself be folded up into a tight hug, breathing deep and letting exhaust and winter and the soft, spicy scent of Blaine fill his lungs. Maybe it will really all be okay.

He still feels guilty, though, and when he pulls back from the hug he presses a quick kiss to Blaine’s lips and then dances back, grabbing his hand and swinging it between them. “What do you want to do?”

“Give me a tour?” Blaine tilts his head toward the stage door and lifts an eyebrow suggestively. In spite of himself, Kurt laughs. “You wish.”

“I do, I really do.”

“Well, at the moment, the workroom is full of irate costume girls who I just seriously pissed off in my reluctance to cover their asses. Are you sure you want to go down there?”

Blaine peers over his shoulder at the door, an evaluative look on his face. After a moment he apparently comes to some decision, because he tugs Kurt’s hand and turns out the front door into the crisp winter night. “Come on. I have a better idea.”

*

“Times Square.”

“Yup!”

“You brought me to Times Square.”

“Mhmm!”

“Blaine Anderson, you are the biggest dork I have ever known.”

Blaine, his face tilted back to take in the dazzling lights, looks hurt. “I thought it would be fun.”

Kurt is instantly sorry. “It is! It is. It’s just. You know.”

“Romantic?”

Kurt sighs and leans his head on Blaine’s shoulder. “Sure, that.”

Blaine’s arm wraps tentatively around his shoulders, and Kurt tries to relax into the touch. It’s hard, though; if he relaxes as much as he wants to, he’s going to fall asleep right here, the noise and lights of a Manhattan evening be damned. So he stifles the urge to yawn and forces his eyes open wider and tries not to wince when Blaine starts bouncing on the balls of his feet, jostling him.

Times Square is crowded this time of night and Kurt, overwhelmed by the lights and the noise and the flowing amorphous clouds of people drifting through it, tries to focus on smaller things, steadier things. There’s a young couple holding hands and staring up at the towering clock; they look blissful, excited, and Kurt envies them. He’d dreamed of being here in New York with Blaine like that, joyous and carefree, and he has Blaine with him, here, now, but it’s not what he’d imagined it would be. Blaine is energetic and usually Kurt had loved him for it but tonight he is draining in his enthusiasm and vivacity. Kurt’s tired and footsore and it’s taking too much energy just to keep up with him.

At a crosswalk nearby a middle-aged couple kisses sweetly before parting ways, and Kurt takes a moment of mental refuge imagining their story: divorced, or widowed, living out dreams and second chances in New York. It should be easier: it always is easier, in his daydreams, but Blaine beside him can’t clear his schedule or erase the ache in his neck and Kurt feels cheated, somehow. He’s come to terms with New York not being everything he had dreamed it would be, and it had taken months but he’d finally carved out his own place here, begun building his own life: not exactly what he’d once thought it would be; better in some ways, worse in others. And Kurt knows, rationally, that he is tired and cranky and not thinking clearly but the thought that rebuilding what he’d lost with Blaine will take as long or be as hard is exhausting.

“Hey,” Blaine snaps Kurt out of his reverie with a squeeze to his arm. “Where do you want to go next?”

Kurt fails to hide a yawn this time. “Honestly? I just want to go back home. If that’s okay with you.”

“Sure.” Blaine kisses his forehead and then steers him towards the nearest subway entrance; Kurt doesn’t have the energy to wonder how he can navigate the city’s public transportation so easily.

He falls asleep on the ride back, just for a few minutes, but when Blaine nudges him awake at their stop it’s enough to make him feel even more disoriented and out-of-sorts. By the time they get to his room it’s all he can do to kick off his shoes and hang up his coat before he flops face-down on the bed. He can hear soft rustlings as Blaine takes off his own coat and shoes, and then the bed dips and Kurt feels Blaine’s warm body slide next to his.

“Long day?” he asks, tucking an arm around Kurt’s waist and nuzzling the side of his neck.

“You have no idea,” Kurt mumbles into his pillow, and can feel the laugh that rumbles through Blaine’s chest. And then, because, apparently, exhaustion has turned off his filters, “You feel good.”

“You do, too.” Blaine shifts and stretches, and then the light clicks off and the room is dark, and Blaine’s arm settles back around him, warm and heavy.

*

He’s not sure how long he falls asleep for, but when he wakes the room is still dark, and the dorm is silent. Blaine is still pressed up close against him on the narrow bed, and Kurt becomes slowly aware of his hands, stroking slowly and rhythmically down Kurt’s back. Kurt’s brain is slow and sleep-dazed and it feels so good, and he moans faintly and nestles his head deeper into Blaine’s chest.

Blaine hums softly and Kurt can feel it in his bones, deep and safe, and when he feels Blaine, hard against his hip, he can’t help himself from rocking gently against him. They’re both still in their clothes, and as he wakes a little more Kurt feels stiff and a little bit gross.

“Ugh. I need a shower.”

Blaine chuckles and presses his hands tighter into his back. “Can I come with?”

Kurt stiffens. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” he finally says, after a long moment.

*

This has gone on long enough. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

Blaine drops his arm from around Kurt’s waist. “I thought we were good. I thought we were...more than good. But for the last two weeks I’ve had no idea what’s going on with you.” It’s been maddening, actually; the rest of their last weekend together had been fun, and Kurt had seemed to enjoy it, but he hadn’t taken initiative again after that first night and Blaine wasn't sure if it was because he had freaked himself out with his own boldness or if it was the most passive aggressive rejection ever.

“What makes you think something’s going on with me?”

Blaine, with great effort, resists the urge to roll his eyes; Passive-aggressive Kurt has never brought out the best in him. “Come on, Kurt, don’t play games with me. I know you too well for that.”

“No you don’t.”

“What are you talking about?” That startles him, and he rolls away from Kurt to get a better look at his face. The side of his face is creased from the pillow, and his shirt is rumpled, but his eyes are sharp in the light filtering in from the street below.

“You don’t know me too well for anything, Blaine Anderson.”

“What are you talking about?” Blaine has no idea where this is coming from; Kurt had been a little snappish during the preceding evening but he’d chalked it up to stress and fatigue. But Kurt’s posture is pure upset, shoulders back, chin up; he’s looking for a fight and Blaine has no idea why.

“Do you have any idea how hard the past sixteen months have been? Do you know how hard you were to get over? God,” Kurt’s sitting up, now, all vulnerability in his posture gone as he draws his knees under him, and Blaine feels his hackles raise, rolling from confusion to combativeness without even really having time to think about it. So Kurt thinks that time was a cakewalk for him? “And now you just come waltzing back into my life like nothing ever went wrong, like we can pick up exactly where we left off -”

“Well why can’t we -”

“ -because exactly where we left off involved you screaming insults in my face and slamming the door behind you!”

Fuck, Blaine should be used to Kurt’s zigging and zagging by now, but this is completely out of left field. “Hey, don’t act like that was all my fault, you said a lot of shit too.”

Kurt talks right over him. “- And then you left and found yourself a new boy toy until he dumped your sweet ass, and then you got lonely and thought you’d just come back to see if I’d still take you, and I was pathetic enough to -”

“Kurt that’s not what happened- ” He kicks back the covers and stands; this is not a fight to be having not on his feet.

“ - But I’m too busy, I’ve got a life of my own now, and there’s not always time for you in it -”

“I don’t care that you were late, I just wanted to see you -” Blaine is zinging between upset and defensive and pleading, and this is not going to end well, but it’s started this way and all he can do is hang on until it’s finished.

“ - And you’re going to get sick of getting jerked around and leave me all over again -”

Blaine is already sick of getting jerked around, but something twigs in his memory. “How long are you going to hold that against me?”

“Hold what against you?”

“Sebastian. And now Matt too, apparently.”

“You think this is about Sebastian?”

“I do, I really do.” Actually, he’s quite sure it’s about Matt, and he’s pissed that somehow Kurt still doesn’t trust him. “Just because you can’t get it through your narrow, insecure little mind that I love you and that I have come back to you every time -”

“Well great! Now I can sleep easy. After you break up with me this time, you’ll be back! No worries! We can start all over again!”

That is not how Blaine remembers it, no it is not, sneers and sarcasm and stiff shoulders in sweaty August heat. “You broke up with me!”

“I - “ Kurt begins, but Blaine is fed up.

“You know what? Fine! I came here to see you, I don’t have to put up with this -”

He stalks to the door, but Kurt springs to his feet in front of him. “You’re going to run away again, just like you always do? You coward.” There’s no expletive, but the look on his face is ugly .

“I am not -” Blaine tries to get past him but Kurt is faster, wedging himself between Blaine and the door, and Blaine can feel himself flush, angry and hurt, because he's right, oh god he's right but he can’t stop wanting to escape. Kurt used to make him brave but he doesn’t have Kurt anymore, just a stranger in Kurt’s body with angry eyes and shaking hands and how did this happen?

“Yes you are! Every time we do this you run away!” Kurt is strident and the urge to push, to shove, to hit his way out of the room tingles in Blaine’s fingertips, but he balls his hands into fists and holds them tight at his sides. Some things will always be unforgivable. “You are going to stay here and we are going to talk about this -” his voice cracks and breaks, and oh shit, oh god, Kurt is crying, Blaine made him cry, jaw hard, eyes glassy, the way he used to when he was sixteen and felt like the whole world was against him. Kurt, oh god Kurt had spent years trying to escape the hurt the world had heaped upon him, and Blaine had become a part of that, Blaine had hurt him too, had yelled and shouted and walked out a year ago, fuck, no wonder Kurt’s been skittish and snappish and Blaine is suddenly panicked and ashamed and desperate to fix this but has no idea how, other than with the only reason any of this is worth it.

“I love you.” His eyes lock on Kurt’s in the dark; Kurt swallows tears but the response comes, apparently, automatically.

“I love you too!”

“Then why -” Why isn’t it enough, why can’t it be enough, why does this have to be so hard -

“Because loving someone doesn’t mean they’re always going to be around!” and he knows Kurt is hurting but Blaine can’t stand the accusation in his voice, can’t stand even more the thought that Kurt is right, he’s right, he’s right -

“So, what, you’re going to push me away so you don’t have to deal with the suspense?” Kurt blanches, and fuck, Blaine is an idiot, always an idiot, that’s exactly what Kurt’s been doing it, exactly what he’d done before, and he never ever would have had to if Blaine hadn’t let himself be pushed, if Blaine hadn’t run away...

"Kurt-" he begins, but he has nothing, no words for this. When they'd been together before they'd talked and they'd talked and they'd talked their way out of problems and if that didn’t work Kurt would always come floating back to him, graceful, forgiving. There will be no easy peace this time; Blaine has to earn that forgiveness, and he wants to, he wants to prove to Kurt that he's worthy, that he's worth it.

"Kurt I never-" he begins again, his throat is dry and he has to cough, swallow. "I never wanted to leave you."

"Then why did you?" Kurt demands, eyes fierce in his pale face.

Blaine takes a step back, away from the door, holding his hands out on front of him, willing Kurt to believe. Kurt tracks his movement with eyes bright in the dark; he can hear him draw a shuddering breath in the silence. "Because I'm stupid, and I'm selfish. Because I have a temper and you know exactly what buttons to push. Because you challenge me and I'm not always up to that challenge. But I want to be." He drags his fingers through his own hair, tries on a tentative smile, tries not to blame, just to state, and is rewarded when the tiniest of smiles blooms on Kurt's lips. He takes another breath, reaches across the space between them, takes Kurt's hand in his own and prays he won't flinch away. He doesn't.

"And I can't promise to not ever be stupid again-" Kurt's smile flirts with a watery grin - "but - Kurt - if you ask me to, I'll always come back. I always would have come back."

Kurt's eyes search his face, his eyes, in the half-dark, and five minutes ago Blaine was ready to stomp out of here in a blaze of rage but now he's terrified of what he'll do if Kurt asks him to leave, this time, forever.

"I shouldn't have to ask you to come back," Kurt's voice is damp and soft and low, like a confession. "I can't always guess what's in your head. I shouldn't have to."

"So - ask." Blaine feels like he's on the verge of pleading. "I can't tell what's in your head either."

Kurt nods, swallows again. "First, I'm worried about the distance."

Blaine chokes down a mad desire to laugh. Kurt, only Kurt, in such a state of emotional upset, would have a list. "The distance?"

Kurt plows forward. "When we were together, before, we were together almost every day. What if it was just because we were just both there and available and then it just became a habit? And now we're in different states, and when things go wrong or I have a bad day and I just want to kiss you and curl up next to you I can't, because you're not there. And what kind of relationship is that? What if once we can't see each other every day we forget about each other?"

"Kurt," Blaine squeezes his hand tighter. "If I was going to forget about you, I already would have. And, I know we didn't talk about it before we left for college, but I think..I think the distance is good. You're Kurt Hummel and you're incredible and you don't need anything or anyone holding you back. And I love you, I love spending time with you, and whether I'm here or not I'll show you that, as much as I can, every day. But - we're young. And we should be adventurous. So don't think of it as distance," Blaine dares a smile, brushes the fingers of his free hand against Kurt's cheek. "Think of it as an adventure."

Kurt smiles, ducks his head. "I can do that."

"I know you can. So. What else?"

"Matt." Blaine is a good person and so he stomps on the impulse to crow ‘I knew it!’ "I saw you two. Together, Last Christmas."

"At the Lima Bean, I know," Blaine nods, and when Kurt looks back up at him, surprised, he shrugs a shoulder. "Rachel told me later. She was pretty pissed about it, actually. I wasn't sure why until later."

That had been his first, and thankfully only, exposure to Rachel in full-throttle diva mode, and somehow she was even more frightening coming to the defense of one of her friends than she was looking out for herself, and Blaine had no longer been surprised that this girl would stuff ballot boxes for Kurt. She'd walk through fire for him, too - or drag anyone else through it. "He saw you! He saw you! Do you have any idea” - she had poked him in the chest hard enough to bruise - "any idea what it feels like to see your ex-boyfriend with someone else? Why didn't you tell me you were bringing him here? Kurt didn't even know you were dating! I didn't get a chance to warn him!" He had been jarred by her ferocity, but things with Matt had still been new and exciting and he’d managed to push the sudden reminder of Kurt away.

“Matt was a good guy.” Blaine can’t lie to Kurt about his, it isn’t fair to either of them, and he knows Kurt’s insecurities and just hopes he’ll understand. “But he wasn’t you. And I think I kept expecting him to be.” He pauses to swallow; this is something he’s thought a lot about these past few weeks, catching glimpses of Matt around campus, being so sure of his choice in Kurt but wondering about the ineffable factors that drew people to each other. Shared experiences. Shared pain, maybe. Chemistry. Or maybe it was different for everyone in every relationship. Whatever it was, he was sure he and Kurt had it. He’d never really given Matt the chance.

Kurt nods, apparently unsurprised by this confession. “But - I won’t always be here. And he is here, and he’s known you, this past year, and I haven’t known you at all, and you’ve changed and I’ve changed and there are things I don’t know about you anymore and what if I say the wrong thing and you decide to hate me forever-” he’s babbling now, rambling, and Kurt may have changed but Blaine is sure he’ll always do this, flit from one fret to the next and drive himself into a tailspin of worry. It’s always been adorable, and he’s always loved being able to pull him out of his dives.

“If things were going to work out with Matt, I would still be with him. I don’t know what else I can say about that. I’m not looking for a second chance there - I definitely broke up with him on purpose.” He wants Kurt to know, to be sure, that he’s not just a rebound, and tries a smile; is this something they can joke about now?

Apparently it is. Kurt rolls his eyes but grins, and does look reassured. “As for the other thing -” Blaine pauses, searching for the words; hewants to get this right. He begins again slowly. “I know we’ve both changed. I think we’re going to need some time to just get to know each other again. But I had so much fun getting to know you the first time, and things worked out so well then - I like our chances.” He can’t help it; he has to grin, feels stupidly, wonderfully earnest. “So.” He takes both of Kurt’s hands this time, brushing his thumbs over his knuckles. Even after everything, he feels, suddenly, nervous. “Since I didn’t actually ask you the first time. Or the second time, really.”

Kurt rolls his eyes again. “Third time lucky?”

“Something that like that.” He squeezes Kurt’s hands, waits for the sparks of laughter in his eyes to flicker out into something deeper, more solemn. “Kurt Hummel, with your permission, I would very much like to get to know you again.”

There’s a look on Kurt’s face; Blaine knows it, loves it, I want to kiss you now, and he gets his answer but not in words. Kurt’s hands wind in his hair, tugging, almost but not quite hurting, as he pulls Blaine’s head down to met his own. He’s whispering something against Blaine’s lips, and at first Blaine thinks it’s just soft, quick breaths, but his ears eventually resolve the sound into words, stuttered between kisses. “l love you, I love you, I love you -”

Kurt eventually pulls back, leaving Blaine dizzy from his mouth and the warm press of his body, snakes his arms around his shoulders and looks him in the eyes. “I know it’s not enough to make it work. But I want you. I never stopped wanting you.”

He starts to say something else but Blaine has to kiss him again, so he does, long tender moments passing in just the press and slide of lips and tongues. Finally Kurt pulls away again, a little breathless, and leans over to flick the desk lamp on. Light floods the room, soft yellow, but it’s bright to eyes used to the dark and they both recoil and blink.

“Sorry,” Kurt says automatically, and steps in again. He wraps an arm, almost shyly, around Blaine’s waist and looks up at him through silky lashes. “About...what I said before. Would you join me in the shower?” He’s flushing, bright red in the low light of the lamp, high spots of color on his ears and cheekbones. Blaine doesn’t think he’s ever been lovelier.

“Are you sure?” It’s suddenly a lot harder to breathe, and also a whole lot warmer in the room. The ancient radiator must have finally kicked on.

Kurt nods and begins walking backwards, tugging him along with the hand on his waist. “Very.”

Kurt shares a bathroom with the other single on the floor, a room inhabited by a taciturn senior whose name Blaine isn’t sure of. Kurt pulls him through the doorway and turns the lock on the other door leading into Mystery Senior’s room, and Blaine wonders, not for the first time, if the perk of an (almost) private bathroom was the reason Kurt had applied for an RAship.

Kurt pushes his own door to the bathroom closed with a soft click and twists the shower on with a easy flick of a wrist, letting the watter heat up, and then stands in close to Blaine again, hands on his shoulders, thumbs tracing patterns on his collarbones through his shirt. Blaine’s hands are on Kurt’s hips and sliding lower, palming over fabric that is very much too much between him and Kurt’s skin.

Kurt’s hands are even less patient, suddenly at Blaine’s waist and tugging up on the hem of his shirt, and after he twists his head out of the blinding tunnel of fabric Blaine grabs Kurt’s hands, from one of which is still dangling Blaine’s shirt. “Hey. You don’t have to prove anything to me, Kurt. Take your time.”

“I am.” Kurt drops the shirt on the floor and kisses him again, and while his tongue is winding into Blaine’s mouth his hands are at Blaine’s waist again, sliding apart the button on his jeans and tugging them down.

Blaine has to lean on Kurt’s shoulder while he kicks off his jeans and then it’s his turn, tanned hands skimming over ivory skin as he undoes the fastenings on Kurt’s sweater, unbuttons his shirt, slides off his pants. He moves slowly, deliberately, watching Kurt’s face for any sign or signal of discomfort. There are none, just Kurt’s eyes going heavy and dark as Blaine kneels to help him step out of his pants, and Blaine holds his gaze as he lifts first one ankle and then the other, Kurt’s fingertips pressing into his shoulder for balance. Let me take care of you. I will always take care of you. I will at least damn well try.

Kurt's skin, pale before him, and his own nudity, bare before Kurt's gaze, i like everything else that's passed between them this pas month - surreal in its reality, and right in a way that Blaine cannot describe, only feel.

When they step into the shower together - it's small, barely big enough for the two of them - Kurt reaches for a shampoo bottle and raises an eyebrow at Blaine's incredulous look.

"I really am disgusting, baby. But, if you want -?" He holds out the bottle, looking hopeful. Blaine grins, takes it from him, and squeezes out a dollop into his palm and winces as his elbow whacks the shower knob, turning the water briefly cold. Kurt turns the temperature back up and Blaine sinks his hands into his hair.

After everything they've done together, after everything Blaine's planning (hoping) to do tonight with Kurt, it is this, somehow, that breaks him. Kurt's eyes are closed, his shoulders bowed and vulnerable, and his dark hair streams black against his forehead under the water. Blaine's fingers drag and scrape and smooth until the soap turns to later and white foaming rivulets of it are trailing down Kurt's lean torso. He brushes a thumb above Kurt's eyebrow to keep a streak of it from running into his eyes, and no touch has ever felt so sexual or so intimate.

"Okay," he murmurs when he's done, and Kurt lets his head fall back into the spray. White streams from his hair, down his body, and when the last of it is gone Kurt blinks his eyes open, and it feels like he's emerging from the water remade, or reborn, as though they had washed all the past away except the joy and the lessons learned.

Kurt offers to return the favor but Blaine shakes his head no and sinks to his knees again. The tile is hard and his ankle is twisted at an uncomfortable angle in the small space, and he couldn’t care less. He won't rush, he won't push, even if it kills him. He'll let Kurt take his time and get his bearings before they go too much further but he desperately wants to do this for him first.

When he first touches Kurt, just tracking fingertips along the smooth-velvet skin, Kurt gasps and knocks his head back against the wall of the shower. “Ow,” he murmurs faintly, eyes closed tight, and Blaine pulls back in concern. “Are you okay?”

“I”m fine,” Kurt blinks his eyes open. “Just - keep doing that.” He braces his shoulders against the wall of the shower and winds his hands into Blaine’s hair, gently pulling him back. Kurt’s eyes hold Blaines’ as he leans forward again, and he shudders when Blaine licks a stripe up the side of him.

When Blaine sucks the tip into his mouth Kurt’s hands slip from the crown of his head to his ears, and the wet fingers dragging through his wet curls sends frissons from Blaine’s scalp through his spine straight to his dick.

Kurt groans softly above him and Blaine mouths around him gently, sucking him deeper, getting used to the length and the weight of him again. Kurt feels the same, he tastes the same, wet-slick-velvety soft, and Blaine is hardening now, quickly. He grinds his knee into the tile, tries not to be distracted or overwhelmed. This is for Kurt, and for them, together; everything Blaine couldn’t put into words but so badly needs Kurt to believe.

Blaine spends long moments just doing this, trying to remember what Kurt loved the most, rediscovering the spots that drove Kurt wild. Kurt’s chest hitches and his breath begins to come unsteady, but he doesn’t break his gaze from Blaine’s. His hands slip over Blaine’s ears completely, and suddenly all Blaine can hear is the roar of oceans in the shells of Kurt’s palms. The water pounds over Blaine’s head and his back, focusing him, grounding him, keeping him from washing away in the storm tide of Kurt’s pleasure, and he can see it then, in Kurt’s eyes, that Kurt can feel it too, how the universe has narrowed to each other. The whole world is water, and Kurt.

There are things in Kurt’s eyes that Blaine could never put into words, but he doesn’t need to. It may not be easy from here, it will not always be perfect and Blaine is not perfect, he will screw up again, he is sure of it, but he knows, and he knows that Kurt knows, that as long as they can be like this they will have each other. Blaine raises a hand to Kurt’s hip and pets the fine skin there, and Kurt jerks, his breath a sharp gasp that Blaine can hear even through the muffle of his hands, and he thrusts erratically into Blaine’s mouth before he gasps again raggedly and sinks back against the wall of the shower, breathing hard.

Blaine gets to his feet gingerly, working out the kinks of kneeling on the hard floor, and presses a close-mouthed kiss to the corner of Kurt’s lips. Kurt’s arms come around him, first to twist the water off, and then to wrap tightly around Blaine, and he tilts his head until their lips align properly and kisses Blaine thoroughly. They’re both breathless when he finally pulls back, and Kurt lets his head sag against Blaine’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m keeping you this time,” Kurt says into his skin, and Blaine can feel himself grinning.

“Well, if I had known that that’s all it was going to take...”

Kurt raises his head and smacks Blaine in the arm. “That is not all it takes and you know it. Way to ruin a moment.”

Blaine snugs his arms tight around Kurt’s waist and kisses his still-dripping hair. “Will you still keep me anyway?”

Kurt snorts and hides his face in Blaine’s neck again. “Always.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt and Blaine’s first Christmas back together: rediscovering the magic, remembering the loss.  
> "So," Blaine breaks the silence after a few long moments, and Kurt tilts his head on his shoulder to listen. "What did you think of our first Christmas party at our Swiss chalet?"
> 
> "Oh my god." Kurt turns his head to bury his face in Blaine's shoulder. "One, this was not our first Christmas party, and this is not our...chalet. Second, I thought we agreed that we were never going to speak of that again."
> 
> He can feel Blaine's smile against the side of his face. "Oh, come on, you loved it." Kurt huffs a sigh into his neck and shakes his head. "Besides, this was totally a chalet party. I'm here, you're here." He pauses, raises his eyes to the ceiling. "Rachel's here. It's Christmas. What else do we need?"

Knock, knock

"Blaine, darlin', can you get that?"

"In a minute!" Blaine is teetering on a kitchen stool, head and arm buried in the top shelf of a cupboard. Mollie comes around the corner carrying a teetering stack of dishware and gives his perch a wary eye. "Honey, you are going to fall."

"Haven't - yet" Blaine manages to find what he's looking for - a package of paper napkins - and looks down on her. The world looks different from way up here. It's kind of cool. He drops the napkins on the counter and nearly hits Jaime, who is up to his elbows chopping up something Blaine doesn't recognize. Kurt would know what it was, though, and probably know three different recipes it could be used in by heart. Kurt, who is going to be here, tonight. Tonight, tonight, tonight!

He realizes he's started singing when Jaime whacks him on the ankle with the back of a wrist. "Dude, easy on the Sondheim, okay?"

The doorbell, this time, an odd and ancient cacophony of chimes that startles Blaine enough that his balance starts to go, and he jumps down from the stool and ducks the dishtowel Mollie flicks at him as he heads for the door. He's still laughing when he pulls it open, but his laughter chokes in his throat when he sees who's standing on the porch.

"Kurt!"

It is Kurt, looking chilled and windblown and absolutely gorgeous and by Blaine's count, three hours and fifty-six minutes early.

He realizes he's just standing there staring when Kurt cocks an eyebrow and at him. "Nice to see you, too."

"Kurt," Blaine says again, startled and surprised in the very best way, and pulls him into the house by the hand. Kurt's suitcase clatters over the threshold, and Blaine leans on the door to close it, it gets sticky in the winter, and he gives it an extra shove with his hip to lock it before he grabs Kurt's hands again and pushes him back against the door.

"Miss me?" If Kurt had been startled by the sudden assault he's hiding it well, and his eyes are sparkling as Blaine whispers "you have no idea," and kisses him.

The kiss is just getting good - Blaine's fingers are digging into Kurt's waist, and Kurt's got his hands on Blaine's collar, pulling him closer - when there's the sound of a throat being cleared and an amused giggle behind him. Kurt pulls back, startled, and Blaine looks over his shoulder reluctantly to see Jaime standing in the hallway, arms crossed, and Mollie peaking in from the kitchen.

"So. This is your boy?" Jaime is trying to put on a tough front, but his eyes can't hide his laughter. "Yes. Um." Blaine realizes he's still standing very close to Kurt and steps back. "Jaime, Mollie, this is my boyfriend, Kurt." He glances cautiously at Kurt, who'd never been one for displays of public affection, who had always been so easily embarrassable. The tips of Kurt's ears are pink, but there's a glitter of something new and a little bold in his eyes as he calmly leans his suitcase against the door and goes to shake Jaime's hand. "It's very nice to meet you."

"You, too, man." Mollie dances down the hall and catches Kurt in a tight, squealy hug. "I've heard so much about you! I'm so glad you're here! Here, let me get your coat."

Jaime tries to get words in edgewise as Mollie bustles, a pixie-sized mother hen, and Blaine just stands on the edge and smiles, watching Kurt get swept up in the whirl of his friends and his life here.

"Hey, so, Blaine says you're really good at food and stuff," Jaime is inching back towards the kitchen, and Kurt drifts back to Blaine's side but listens politely. "Do you think you could...?"

"Jaime!" Mollie scolds. "He just got here."

Blaine chuckles and wraps his arms around Kurt's waist. "We'll help in a minute. I'm just going to go help Kurt unpack."

"Mhmm, unpack, sure," Mollie rolls her eyes and flits back into the kitchen. "You boys have fun!" Jaime follows her and suddenly the entryway is quiet again. Blaine spins Kurt around in his arms so they're nose-to-nose.

"Welcome back."

Kurt kisses the tip of his nose. "That was... quite the welcoming committee."

"Well, that's what you get when you get here ahead of schedule." Blaine can't help nuzzling Kurt's cheek, the side of his neck. "I had plans, Kurt. I was going to pick you up and the station, have a nice, leisurely walk back here..."

Kurt shivers. "It would not have been leisurely, it is freezing out there. And that is what you get for always showing up unannounced in New York." He grins, that grin only Blaine gets. "I got out of my exam early and managed to catch the earlier bus. I thought it would be fun to surprise you. Is..." his smile falters. "Is that okay?"

"It's the best.” Blaine kisses him again, grabs Kurt's suitcase in one hand and Kurt's hand in the other. "Come on. Let's unpack you."

Kurt tilts an eyebrow as he puts his foot on the first step, following Blaine up the stairs. "Is that what we're calling it now?"

"Works for me!" Blaine laughs and races up the rest of the stairs, nearly out of his skin with delight to have Kurt here, here, here. And tomorrow they'll drive back to Lima and have a whole month together, and Kurt will always be there, just like it was before, except better, because this is now and they're not going to break up this time. Kurt dances into him as soon as Blaine's inside his room, leaning on the door to close it and tugging on the hand Blaine's still holding to pull him in close. Kurt's eyes are green in the low-lit room and Blaine has to kiss him, just wants to keep him here, with him, forever.

It's a quick scramble and fumble, fingers at belts and buttons, and Kurt is giggling when Blaine tackles him down to the bed, skin on skin as he covers Kurt's body with his own and kisses him again because he can and Kurt's here.

Kurt digs his hands into Blaine's hair, though, and rolls them so that he's on top, his weight a warm solidity as he sucks a kiss into Blaine's neck. Blaine's higher-functioning brain tells him he should push Kurt off, Kurt is going to leave a bruise and Blaine's shirt is not going to completely cover it, tonight or tomorrow back home in Lima with his family. But he loves this, loves Kurt too much, loves that Kurt is in his arms and claiming him like this, and Blaine knows he'll get hell for it but he absolutely does not care. Because Kurt is his and he is Kurt’s.

There’s a bit of desperation in Kurt’s movements that hasn’t been there before, like he’s finally been able to let himself go and just want, and take what he wants. He kisses his way down Blaine’s chest, eyes dancing up at Blaine as he goes, and Blaine thanks god or luck or whatever it is that’s brought them back together, because he does not know how he lived without this.

Kurt’s mouth on him is warm, and sudden, and Blaine strains his neck to try to keep watching him as Kurt licks up the side and squeezes the base with fingers that belong to a pianist, and Blaine should teach him to play except that he’d never be able to, would never be able to concentrate long enough without remembering Kurt’s fingers like this.

Kurt’s mouth sinks tight around him and his fingers trace patterns low on Blaine’s body and Blaine closes his eyes, lets his head sink back and just lets go, riding the wet heat. He had done this in New York, too, after they had climbed out of the shower and toweled off. Kurt had pushed Blaine down on his own bed and traced these patterns across his body with his mouth and his hands.

Kurt’s fingers slip lower, teasing and then probing, and Blaine chokes off a gasp. “Oh, god, Kurt.”

“Yeah?” Kurt’s drawing circles, tiny tight spirals, and Blaine grabs at his head, holding him there while he breathes and tries not to shatter.

“Yeah. Definitely, yeah.” Kurt hums happily, and then there’s the click of a bottle being open and shut and then Kurt’s fingers are back on him, wet and circling and pressing, then pressing in, and fuck, Kurt had been right, so right, at seventeen and shy because there is nothing sexier than the brush of fingertips.

Blaine wants to draw it out, wants to make it last, but it’s been three weeks and Kurt’s mouth is tight around him and his fingers are sliding now, in and out, brushing perfectly against every nerve and orgasm blindsides him, rushing out from his core to his fingers and sparking in his veins as he gasps through it.

Kurt strokes him, so hot and gentle, and kisses his hip as he comes down, smiling wickedly and pleased up at Blaine until Blaine’s brain recovers enough from the onslaught of sensation to be able to tell his limbs to pull Kurt back up, turning him onto his back and kissing him while his hand ghosts down Kurt’s side to his hip and closes tight around him, stroking smoothly and steadily. Kurt’s smirk dissolves into a gasp and then a whimper and it’s only a matter of minutes before he’s shaking and his fingernails are digging into Blaine’s shoulder as he bucks hard into Blaine’s hand and then collapses back onto the bed, breathing hard.

He blinks up at Blaine bemusedly and Blaine lets his weight fall back to an elbow, propping himself up by Kurt’s side. He reaches out a hand and brushes it over Blaine’s cheek, his lips. “Yeah,” he breathes. “I missed you too.”

*

Kurt buttons Blaine back up, his fingers careful and slow, before he tugs his own shirt and sweater back on, and Blaine can't watch that beautiful skin disappear under wool and layers again without wanting to take it all off him again. He lets his fingers tease at the thin sliver of it above the waist of Kurt's jeans before Kurt bats his hand away again and laughs at his attempt at puppy-dog eyes. "We'll have plenty of time later," he says, kissing the top of Blaine's head and tugging him up by his wandering hand. Blaine takes a moment to enjoy the thought of that - they have all the time in the world, now - as he lets himself be pulled to his feet, and follows Kurt downstairs.

In the kitchen Kurt takes one look at the wreck Jaime's made out of the appetizer preparation and promptly takes over, bustling around the stove while he issues a steady stream of orders to, apparently, no one in particular. Jaime beats a hasty retreat into the living room to help Mollie with the decorations, leaving Blaine to squash into the small space with Kurt and fetch and stir and carry. Kurt is simultaneously measuring something out into a saucepan and regaling Blaine with stories from one of his theater finals when Blaine realizes that something is off.

"Hey, Kurt," he interrupts, setting down the hunk of cheese he's grating. "Wasn't Rachel supposed to be coming down with you?"

Kurt goes almost comically pale at the exact same moment that the doorbell rings. There's a clatter from the front hall as someone unlocks the front door, and Mollie's voice, enthusiastic in welcoming, drifts in to the kitchen. Kurt drops the measuring cup he's holding and almost skids around the corner, and Blaine, equal parts amused and horrified, follows at a more cautious pace.

Rachel is, in fact, in the doorway, looking cold and wet and frankly miserable. When Kurt comes into view her head snaps up and her eyes narrow.

"Kurt Warbler!" Kurt blanches even whiter, if that is possible, and Blaine can't help leaning in to ask. "Does that mean - ?"

"That I am in serious trouble? Yes, yes it does. Rachel!" Kurt darts forward, leaning in to hug her but then pulling back when he realizes how wet she is. "I'm so sorry, I was going to call you, but then I got out of my exam early and went right to the station - "

Rachel's scowl breaks into a laugh, and she reaches out to pull Kurt into a tight hug, "I know, I know, Lydia called me and told me she'd seen you off. Besides, I fully understand the sacrifices that have to be made to allow the course of true love to run smooth. Even by friends. Blaine!" she gives Kurt a last peck on the cheek before letting him go and engulfs Blaine in a tight and very damp and cold hug. "It's so good to see you!

Blaine laughs and hugs her back; glad to see her and glad also that, wherever she goes Rachel is, indomitably, Rachel. "It's good to see you too. How was the ride?"

"It seemed quite a bit longer than I suspect it would have if I had had a travelling companion," she says, with one last benign glare Kurt-wards. "But it was uneventful. I listened to two entire musical soundtracks and planned out the first unit of the course I am going to teach on theatricality when they finally offer me a teaching position at school. My advisor said they almost never hire undergrads to teach, but I am hopeful."

*

As Rachel chatters she sheds layers, and Blaine catches her coat and hangs it up while Mollie sets her suitcase aside by the stairs. Kurt brushes a hand over his sweater even as he knows that won't really get the residual dampness out, and watches Rachel hug Mollie and greet Jaime and trip down the hall to the kitchen to see what's going on with the party preparations. He realizes with something of a jolt - how could Rachel have never mentioned it? - that she's been here before. She's stayed here in Boston, with Blaine and his friends, god knows when, and as Blaine laughs and follows her into the kitchen Kurt feels out of it, and feels the pang of everything he'd lost in the last year and a half. Not just the relationship he'd let fall apart but just times like this, friendly visits and Christmas parties and just hanging out with friends he's not going to ever be able to get back. It stings, and he follows behind them at a little distance. For a moment he feels like he did last summer in the choir room at McKinley, looking at interlopers and then suddenly realizing he is one himself.

But at the kitchen door Blaine looks over his shoulder to see if he's coming and, when he meets Kurt's eyes, lights up with a smile that Kurt can feel all the way down to his toes. He takes Blaine's proffered hand and squeezes it.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him against the wall as Rachel fills a glass of water for herself at the sink and asks Mollie about her finals, Kurt decides that he's already lost enough of this to not make the most of what he has now. He'll let the regrets be the lesson and just make up for all the time he's lost. Kurt lets his arm slip around Blaine's waist and, when Blaine turns a curious smile in his direction, lets his head rest on Blaine's shoulder. Making up for lost time is hardly going to be a chore.

*

It's past midnight when they both collapse on the sofa in the living room, dusting snow out of each other's hair and probably grinding a ridiculous amount of slush into the carpet. It's not Kurt's carpet, though, and when he voices a concern Blaine just crowds into his space and kisses him quiet. Rachel is asleep upstairs in Mollie's room and they've just seen Mollie and Jaime off on the train station for their ride home for the Christmas break.

Mollie had declared the party a resounding success before she left, and Kurt can't disagree. He loves New York, and his friends and the people there, but he can see now why Blaine loves Boston, how he somehow grew up and into life here while Kurt wasn't even aware. He's in his element here, in a way he hadn't been at Dalton or even at McKinley, and it had been a joy to watch him.

But now the house is (effectively) empty, the kitchen is clean, or clean enough to last until the morning, and Blaine's crowding has become more insistent, his lips working at a spot just under Kurt's collar. Kurt lets his head fall back and relaxes under Blaine's hands, which are now wandering across his chest again, bunching and smoothing the fabric over his stomach over and over again until Kurt has to squirm away.

"Not on the couch,” he protests, when Blaine pouts at him, and can't resist pressing another brief kiss to his lips before he sits up. "God, Mollie lives here, I'll never be able to look her in the eye again."

Blaine just shakes out his hair and stands up. "Well then." He hits a button on the stereo, holds out a hand. Kurt just watches him, bemused, until Blaine gestures again, flexing his fingers. "Dance with me?"

"Really?" Kurt sits up, starts to move his arm to take Blaine's had. It shouldn't feel like this, after everything; like the shock of being picked and chosen and wanted when he himself had wanted for so long. It's time to stop being surprised when life gives him good things. He stands, and takes Blaine's hand.

The music Blaine's put on is steady and slow, and Blaine pulls him into a soft spin, his arm warm around his waist, his hand splayed strong on his back. Time to stop being surprised, but never to stop being grateful.

"So," Blaine breaks the silence after a few long moments, and Kurt tilts his head on his shoulder to listen. "What did you think of our first Christmas party at our Swiss Chalet?"

"Oh my god." Kurt turns his head to bury his face in Blaine's shoulder. "One, this was not our first Christmas party, and this is not our...chalet. Second, I thought we agreed that we were never going to speak of that again."

He can feel Blaine's smile against the side of his face. "Oh, come on, you loved it." Kurt huffs a sigh into his neck and shakes his head. "Besides, this was totally a chalet party. I'm here, you're here." He pauses, raises his eyes to the ceiling. "Rachel's here. It's Christmas. What else do we need?"

Kurt laughs and kisses the side of Blaine's neck before he pulls back to look him in the eye. "Sap."

Blaine just hugs him close again. "Guilty." Then, after a moment, "So. This time tomorrow we'll be back in Lima. Does that feel weird to you?"

Kurt takes a moment to think about it. "Yes and no? I know it's the first time we'll be back there together since, you know..." he shrugs his shoulders and Blaine finishes the sentence for him; they've agreed not to tiptoe around the issue but it's hard, sometimes, when Kurt just wants to forget the last year ever happened.

"Since we broke up."

"Yeah. And it's going to be so crazy.” He grins, excited but already a little exhausted by the prospect, family and old friends and holiday warmth and this year, yes, finally, Blaine's eyes and his hand warm in his own. There's a significance to it, he knows; returning to the place where they had started, after so much time apart and then together, elsewhere. There will be questions from their friends and excitement from everyone and Kurt doesn't want to think about dealing with those now, just wants to enjoy the calm and quiet and Blaine in his arms.

Blaine had been part of his past for so long, but strangely, now that they're going back all he can think of now is how Blaine is his future. They've talked a lot, these past weeks, and that volume simply can't last forever, they'll be far busier in the spring, but they're building the foundation again, filling the cracks in the old one and becoming so so sure of each other again. And after spring will come summer, a whole season together at home, and then...just two years, and then whatever it is that comes next. Kurt doesn't know exactly what's going to be next but he likes that, likes the suspense and the sense of potential, made so much less frightening knowing that he's not going to be alone.

Blaine watches his face as they spin slowly in time to the music - and Kurt had been right, a month ago, this room is perfect for dancing - and Kurt wonders what he’s thinking, what he’s remembering or hoping for. Eventually Kurt realizes that Blaine is steering them towards the door that leads out into the entry way. He stops right in the doorway and urges Kurt to look up with a grin and a skyward glance of his eyes; Kurt tilts his head back to see what on earth Blaine’s up to now.

“Oh my god what is that?”

“It’s Mistletoad!” Blaine is - yes, he’s actually bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“What?”

“See?” Blaine puts a hand up to turn the thing into the light better, and yes, it is, a mistletoad, a little plastic toad in a Santa hat holding a sprig of mistletoe. “Mollie and I found him down at the Christmas festival last week. Isn’t he cute?”

"Oh my god. You're a sap and a dork."

"Yeah, but I'm your sappy dork."

Blaine’s smile is bright and warm, and when he kisses Kurt, under the absurd and slightly tacky and yes, okay, kind of adorable mistletoad it’s sweet and gentle and full of promise, a Christmas kiss to keep for the year. His eyes are shining when he finally pulls back and, fingers tightening gently on Kurt’s side, asks softly, “Come to bed with me?”

And Kurt knows, knows without the words being said what Blaine is asking. They’ve done things together, they’ve done a lot of things together, in the few nights they’ve been together since the last time Kurt was here. But they’ve never crossed a certain line they both know is arbitrary but that still means something, the last thing separating what they used to be to each other from what they could be.

Kurt finds Blaine’s hand on his own waist and squeezes his fingers tight. “Yes.”

They walk upstairs hand in hand, their hips bumping against the railings and each other on the narrow staircase. As they cross the threshold of Blaine's room Kurt feels a prickle of nerves. It's been a long time since he's been here, since he's done this, and for a moment he wonders if he can. But Blaine's smile is sweet when he presses Kurt up against the closed door, and Kurt closes his eyes and lets his head fall back and just breathes, the air heavy and warm around them.

Blaine's hands come up to his face, palms on his jaw and fingers scratching at his hair, and Kurt opens his mouth and presses his tongue against Blaine's because like this it's easy to remember how good they were together, how easy and how desperate their touches can come.

Blaine's hands on his face press insistent now, fingers tracing patterns into his hair. He hums, low in his chest, into the kiss, but doesn't make any further move.

He's waiting for Kurt.

It's a little overwhelming, after the arguments and the pushing and the testing they've put each other through, and Kurt falls in love with him just a little bit more. To hell with all of that now. Kurt just wants.

He nips at Blaine's lip and Blaine gives a startled little grunt, pulling back to check Kurt's eyes before diving in again, hands at his shoulders now. Kurt presses their hips together and Blaine groans softly.

“Now,” Kurt whispers, and walks Blaine backwards toward the bed, pushing him down by the shoulders once the back of his knees hit the edge and crawls up over him where the comforter is still rumpled from their “unpacking” earlier. It's not the quilt Kurt remembers from Blaine's room in Lima, and he wonders if it's still there, crazy plaid getting into his dreams and for weeks making it impossible for him to look at anything tartan without remembering Blaine's hands, his mouth, his skin, oh god his skin, laid out in the low light for him.

There’s not nearly enough of Blaine’s skin visible now and Kurt goes to work, unbuttoning and unpeeling while Blaine stretches out on his back, hands over his head and watches him, eyes heavy and dark. When he’s done Blaine catches him around the waist and holds him there, Kurt’s knees straddling Blaine’s hips and Blaine’s thumbs drawing circles low on Kurt’s back. It's been so long since he's thought about any of that, their first time being intimate together; their physical relationship had gotten so thoroughly tied up in the rest of what they had that that night had simply faded into the background. But he can see it again tonight, in Blaine's eyes, in the shyness underneath the desire, the stutter in his fingertips even as he reaches for Kurt so surely.

Blaine pulls him down for a kiss, breaking it just long enough to pull Kurt’s shirt and sweater over his head in one long motion, and Kurt kicks his pants off and then it’s just them, skin and them, tangled together on Blaine’s bed.

“I love you,” Blaine whispers to his mouth, and his arms come up around Kurt’s back, so strong and warm, and Kurt melts into the embrace. It’s been sweet so far, but Kurt can feel Blaine hard against his hip and he wants nothing more than to make Blaine fall apart, and for Blaine to take him apart, too.

Blaine’s eyes go dark when Kurt starts kissing his way down his chest and when Kurt closes his mouth tight around the head of him he lets out a choked breath and falls back against the pillows. It’s nothing they haven’t done already today but with the promise of more heavy in the air it feels like so much more, like horizons are open before them and Kurt feels free; free like he always thought New York should have made him feel but didn’t.

The secrets of the world really can be found in bed. Who would have thought?

Blaine grabs one of Kurt’s hands, stroking idly at his hip, and brings it to his mouth and Kurt has to shut his eyes against the press of his lips, and then his tongue and teeth, as Blaine sucks two of his fingers into his mouth. The wet pressure of his mouth goes straight to Kurt’s groin and he has to rut up against Blaine’s thigh, just once or twice, before he pulls his fingers loose and drags them around Blaine’s dick, and then lower. He’ll need lube in a minute but for now Blaine has left his fingers wet and slippery and he presses in, gently at first and then more steadily, coaxing him open while Blaine swears in whispers above him.

“Kurt - you gotta -” Blaine’s incoherent profanity coalesces into a plea, and Kurt fumbles for the nightstand, finds a condom and the lube. Blaine is wrecked, and Kurt’s body responds to the sight of him, hair messy, eyes glassy, with a heat he had forgotten he was capable of. His hands are trembling, from the adrenaline as much as the nerves, as he rolls on the condom and slicks himself and before he lets the nerves settle in he pushes in.

Blaine’s body is hot and tight and seems to be pulling Kurt in, back where he belongs, and he would laugh at the schmaltz of that thought but the pressure around him nearly punches the air from his lungs. Blaine lets out a whimper, hands coming up to work along Kurt’s spine and Kurt rolls his hips forward, Blaine’s fingers moving as though he's playing Kurt like the instrument he is in Blaine’s arms.

Maybe there are experiences he'll miss out on, and Blaine was right that life is an adventure and they should embrace it but nothing Kurt's seen or tried in the city can rival this warm living body under his, the heart of this boy pulsing against his own. Kurt wants them to explore life, together, there is nothing he can imagine that could be better, no potential worth giving up this.

Blaine’s eyelids are fluttering; like he’s trying to hold Kurt’s gaze but it’s too much, too much sensation to hold on to, and Kurt leans forward and presses their mouths together and just breathes, wraps a hand around Blaine’s cock and starts stroking, long and firm to match the tempo of his hips and he’s not going to last much longer; he can feel the heat coiling already in the base of his spine and he wants to bring Blaine with him. He can feel it rising; Blaine’s fingers tighten on his back, pressing blunt fingernails into his skin, and his hips lifting from the bed to meet Kurt’s as they race each other towards orgasm.

“Oh fuck, oh god, Kurt,” and then Blaine’s hips are snapping up and his body is clenching around Kurt, and that’s it, it’s too much, and Kurt feels like he’s being torn apart and emptied and filled back up and he collapses on top of Blaine as the pleasure rips through him. They lie together, limbs tangled, Kurt breathing in the scent of their mingled bodies, sweat and heat and sex, as the aftershocks twitch through them.

“God, we’re a mess,” Blaine says, lifting his head to look down between them.

“Don’t care. Not moving.” Kurt mumbles into his shoulder, and Blaine laughs and rolls Kurt off of him and grabs tissues from the nightstand to clean them up while Kurt lies starfished on the bed, blissed and immobile. When he’s done Blaine pulls Kurt over on top of himself, and Kurt rests his head on his shoulder and sketch patterns across his chest as Blaine blinks sleepily and happily up at him. "Love you," Blaine murmurs, and Kurt kisses his cheek and exerts himself to pull the comforter up over both of them. “I love you too.”

It feels different, now, with that last barrier gone, again; not hugely different, but just in the little ways that make all the difference; the tenderness with which Blaine brushes hair away from Kurt’s face, Kurt’s patience as Blaine squirms into a more comfortable position underneath him, the quiet warmth with which Blaine kisses Kurt goodnight before he turns off the light.

As they settle down together in the dark Kurt things about it. Of course it’s easy to say, now that he has Blaine back in his arms, but he’s glad that they had this chance to be separate. It had given him the chance to grow and work life out for himself, but also, it makes him certain that they'll find their way back to each other.

Blaine’s palm strokes soft and soothing over Kurt’s back, and they drift off together as snow falls gently outside.

*

The sky is wide and low, the kind of sky that promises snow. The ground is still bare, and the landscape whizzes by in streaks of brown fields and gray road and white sky. They swap drivers after lunch and as Rachel burrows herself back down into the nest she's made for herself in the back out of duffel bags and pillows and sweatshirts she's dragged out of their suitcases Kurt takes Blaine's keys and slides into the driver's seat.

By the time he merges back onto the interstate Rachel's already asleep, head lolling against the window. Blaine glances over his shoulder at her before he turns off her iPod and unhooks it from the stereo. "Mind if I put something else on?"

Kurt side-eyes the rhinestoned device in Blaine's hand. "Please do. My iPod's in my bag if you want."

Blaine sticks Rachel's in the console. Kurt's bag is at his feet and he flips it over and begins rummaging through it.

"I thought she was kidding about that theatricality class."

"Unfortunately not. She's got her heart set on it, god help us if they turn her down."

Blaine snorts a smile. "Silver lining of living two states away. Though I will of course support you through all of your Rachel-induced agony." He presses one hand to his heart in mock sincerity and pulls something from the bag with his other. "Hey, what's this?"

Kurt glances over. "Oh god, I'd forgotten about that."

"What is it?" Blaine turns it over in his hands.

Kurt rolls his eyes. "It was Todd's idea - you remember him?" Blaine nods. "He was doing a project for one of his classes, and wanted to get a bunch of - I can't remember what he called them. Stream-of-consciousness, free-association-rant, something like that. He gave us all voice recorders and told us to just talk into them. Whatever we wanted."

"Did you do it?"

"Mhmm. I thought it was ridiculous, but Rachel was on his side and she swapped that thing for my iPod when I came back to school last fall."

"Can I listen?"

Kurt glances at the little recorder Blaine's holding so carefully. He doesn't remember everything he rambled in the car that blistering August day that seems so long ago now, but he remembers some of it, has spent a lot of time thinking about a little of it. "If you want."

Blaine figures out how to jack the thing into the iPod hookup, and, with another glance over his shoulder at Rachel in the backseat, turns the volume down and hits play.

Kurt doesn't follow all of it; the sound of his own voice is simultaneously distracting and lulling, and he tunes it out as he sets cruise control and glides from Pennsylvania back into Ohio. But he hears enough to be reminded of things he'd forgotten, to understand some things he hadn't realized he'd been feeling nearly half a year ago. Before last night he doesn't know how he'd feel about Blaine hearing this, the uncertainty and the heartbreak he'd carried around with himself even when things were getting better. But Kurt's heart and his mind and his body are back in Blaine's keeping, and Blaine's are in Kurt's, and Kurt has no more secrets to keep.

When it finally reaches the end of the tape Blaine turns his head towards him. "Oh, Kurt."

Kurt keeps his eyes on the road. More of that damned recording must have gotten into his brain than he'd thought, because he starts talking without consciously deciding what he's going to say.

"It's...it's a little weird. Going back to where we started." He nods down the interstate. "For so long, all of that, you, Lima, that was all behind me. In the past. Dust in the rear view mirror." He quirks a grin at his own cliched poetry. "But then I went home last summer and...I don't know. Last year was hard for me. Don't apologize," he darts a glance sideways at Blaine. Kurt can hear his sigh over the hiss of the heating vents.

"I am sorry, though. I didn't know..."

Kurt shakes his head and readjusts his grip on the steering wheel. "Even if you had, it wouldn't have mattered. You were...occupied," he says wryly.

"Still," Kurt sees Blaine shake his head out of the corner of his eye. His Blaine: so sweet, still so unable to accept the idea that Kurt be hurting, even if he never quite knew how to fix it. "I feel like I let you down. You needed me and I wasn't there for you."

Kurt blinks and watches the white line running down the middle of the road and, this time, thinks very carefully about what he's going to say before he says it. "Blaine, when we were together before, you were my knight in shining armor. You made everything... god, so much better. But you can't come to my rescue every time. It's not your job to. And we're not in high school anymore." He glances out of the corner of his eye at Blaine, who moves his hand from his lap to Kurt's thigh and squeezes. "I loved you more when I started to realize that you weren't perfect, and that I could save you, too. I was the happiest when I was your partner, not just your project."

Blaine's thumb is tracing the outer seam of Kurt's jeans. "I never thought of it like that. I just...want good things for you."

"So do I," Kurt smiles. "But it was good to learn to go out and get them for myself."

Blaine's smile is small and self-deprecating. "So have I screwed up enough this time yet for me to be my partner?"

Kurt laughs and takes one hand off the wheel to squeeze Blaine's. "For as long as you'll have me."

Kurt can see Blaine's jaw working as he tries to work out what to say, and Blaine clears his throat, laces their fingers together. "I never stopped looking for you."

The road goes slightly blurry. Fuck Blaine and his earnestness and his always knowing exactly what to say to turn Kurt's heart inside out. Kurt has to let go of his hand to wipe a sleeve over his eyes and gives a watery laugh. Blaine's smile is gentle and Kurt tangles their fingers together again. "I love you, too."

Blaine beams and settles back into his seat, Kurt's hand held comfortably in both of his. "So does that mean I can pick the music now?"

"Anything but Broadway," Kurt stipulates, and, still grinning, Blaine leans forward to rummage through Kurt's bag again for the iPod.

Kurt hits the accelerator to pass a slow-moving trailer and smiles to himself. It's going to be a good Christmas.

fin

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been in the works for a long, long, time – since the middle of the summer, actually. It's by far the longest and most complicated thing I've ever written in any fandom, ever. It began as a Kurt-POV mirror piece for the Blaine-centric We've Been Here Before, but somewhere in between planning it and writing it it became its own beast. It still is a companion piece, and though this will make sense without reading that, some things might be more fun if you do, so I recommend doing that. (Plus, you know, as a fic writer I think I'm constitutionally obligated to shill for my own work, so there's that.)
> 
> Title is taken from Blink 182's "I Miss You." Shortly after I wrote and posted We've Been Here Before, and while the idea for this fic was percolating, mtonbury went through a pop-punk phase and started playing Blink and All Time Low around the house (I've learned to just not question these things) and kept going “Hey! This song would be great for your fic!” When I heard the opening line to "Always" I thought he might be on to something,
> 
> Obligatory note on canon-tossing: As I said, this story was conceived over the summer hiatus, when Blaine was at least the same age as Kurt, if not possibly older. I've kept him the same age here, and mussed with the ages of some of the other characters for the sake of my own narration – Tina is in the same graduating class as Kurt, but Sam is a year behind.
> 
> A massive thank you to my amazing betas, kaelri for being a soundingboard and cheerleader and for listening to me flail as I waffled my way through this thing, and mtonbury for grumbling about the Klaineness but offering sage advice nonetheless.
> 
> Originally published on LJ 12/11/11.


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